Butterfly eyespots evolved via cooption of an ancestral gene-regulatory network that also patterns antennae, legs, and wings.

Abstract

Butterfly eyespots are beautiful novel traits with an unknown developmental origin. Here we show that eyespots likely originated via cooption of parts of an ancestral appendage gene-regulatory network (GRN) to novel locations on the wing. Using comparative transcriptome analysis, we show that eyespots cluster most closely with antennae, relative to multiple other tissues. Furthermore, three genes essential for eyespot development, <i>Distal-less</i> (<i>Dll</i>), <i>spalt</i> (<i>sal</i>), and <i>Antennapedia</i> (<i>Antp</i>), share similar regulatory connections as those observed in the antennal GRN. CRISPR knockout of <i>cis</i>-regulatory elements (CREs) for <i>Dll</i> and <i>sal</i> led to the loss of eyespots, antennae, legs, and also wings, demonstrating that these CREs are highly pleiotropic. We conclude that eyespots likely reused an ancient GRN for their development, a network also previously implicated in the development of antennae, legs, and wings.