User:Stemcellbiology7

This will be where I will place the table of context

1. Introduction

The development and morphology of animals have many similarities and differences. The study of animal morphology and its development throughout a certain period of time can be key in understanding how to develop a new creature catered to our own imagination. The Pokémon that I will be attempting to synthesis will be Magnemite.Magnemite is a Pokémon that is made of steel and conducts electricity mainly when felt threatened. This Pokémon has developed two main defense mechanisms to protect itself; Supersonic and Flash cannon. Supersonic is a wave of electrical magnetic waves that is used to confuse predators. His second defense mechanisms is Flash cannon and is simply s flash of electricity coming from his single eye at the center of his whole body. This Pokémon has not been assigned a gender and thus probably has qualities of both male and female suggesting signs of hermaphroditism. I will be creating this particular Pokémon by modifying a particular type of fish living deep under the sea and taking inheritable features found in other animal DNA to create certain features. Given that Magnemite has a metallic outer layer, I would say that this Pokémon resembles a beetle.

2. Phylogeny

Beetles are in the order coleoptera and in the class of insects that is distinguished by its hardened front wings that are used to encase and protect its actual wings used for flight. Lastly, the genus that this Pokémon is more similar to is the genus cotinis mutabilis that also has a hardened colored exoskeleton. The life cycle of this Pokemon would resemble that of the beetle cotinis mutabalis. Its life cycle would have three main stages; The pronymph, nymph and the final adult product of these stages. Cleavage would take place at the egg stage where the egg is first fertilized and a zygote is formed. The cleavage pattern of insects is pretty interesting and different from other animals.

3. Cleavage & Gastrulation

Insects exhibit a form of meroblastic cleavage called superficial cleavage. In superficial cleavage, a layer of cells is produced from the center of the zygote which is heavily concentrated in yolk. These cells essentially arise from the daughter nuclei produced by mitosis by an insects own sexual reproduction process. The interesting mechanism by which the outer layer of the insects blastoderm forms is by the production of many nuclei at the center of the zygote.

When several thousands of nuclei have been formed, they then start to migrate to the outer layer of the zygote that is rich in cytoplasm. Only when these thousands of nuclei migrate towards the cytoplasm that they then each acquire a plasma membrane themselves. The gastrulation stage occurs right after the mid-blastula stage where the cells transition by moving to different parts of the zygote. The reorganization of these cells will create distinct and notable parts such as the ventral furrow processed by mesoderm cells and later creating its ventral tube. The ventral furrow is just a cavity in the form of a line that extends from the posterior end of the zygote to the anterior end of the cephalic furrow which creates another line or border if you will that is perpendicular to that of the ventral furrow.

It is important to note that the cephalic furrow creates this border to separate the mesoderm and the ectoderm layers that have been reorganized.  

After, these three main morphological processes will occur which will give rise the embryo; segmentation, germ bond retraction and dorsal closure.

This will be apparent under microscopy as segments being created from the anterior end of the zygote to the posterior end. The last step would be organogenesis which would provide the insect with all its organs needed for survival.

5. Sex Determination

Beetles in general are equipped with male and female organs to reproduce sexually. However, Magnemite, a close relative of insects has evolved a mechanism to sexually reproduce by itself as well as sexually. This phenomenon is called parthenogenesis and is a form of asexual reproduction that resembles the asexual reproduction of ants. When Magnemites are at the adult stage (Magnezone), they are fully equipped to reproduce asexually or sexually. The most common form is through asexual reproduction and the gender depends on environmental cues such as temperature. If magnemite is produced asexually at or above temperatures above 75 degrees, then the resulting initial mgnemite is male and if the weather is below 75 degrees, then a female counterpart will be created. Sexual reproduction is set aside to produce a queen magnemite that will later develop into an adult Megaznite.

9. Post Embryonic Development (From Discussion)

The first technique I would use to determine the development of my Pokémon would be to create a fate map. A fate map would give insight into which exact cells in the embryo gave rise to the subsequent tissues and organs formed. For this, I would want to label and follow a group of cells at a very early stage of the developing insect embryo. Since the experiment is only as good as the marker used to trace these cells, I would want a very good genetic market that would adhere to the cells and be expressed during a later stage of development. The marker I would use would be a green fluorescent protein (GFP) that would in theory be coupled to a tissue specific protein. This is done so that the GFP protein is specific to a group of cells that will later differentiate into certain tissue of the embryo body.

References

Riparbelli MG, Gottardo M, Callaini G. Parthenogenesis in Insects: The Centriole Renaissance. Results Probl Cell Differ. 2017;63:435-479. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-60855-6_19. PMID: 28779329.

Truman, J. W., & Riddiford, L. M. (2019). The evolution of insect metamorphosis: a developmental and endocrine view. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 374(1783), 20190070. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0070