Department of Zoology

 

Evolution and Diversity

Michael Akam

Head of Department and Professor of Zoology

Email: hod@zoo.cam.ac.uk or m.akam@zoo.cam.ac.uk

Tel.: +44 (0) 1223 336601

I am a developmental geneticist with a particular interest in the generation of morphological diversity. Most of our work is with arthropods. We have a long standing interest in the role of the "Hox" family of developmental regulatory genes: How their regulation and expression leads to the range of different segment morphologies in Drosophila; how changes in the role of Hox genes may be related to the pattern of segment diversity in other insects, in crustaceans and in myriapods. We also use a range of species including onychophorans and centipedes to study the mechanisms that lead to axial patterning and segmentation in arthropods that appear to make embryos in very different ways. We use a range of genetic and embryological techniques including transgenesis, descriptive molecular embryology and the analysis of cell lineage. We are members of the Marie Curie Evonet training network (http://www.itn-evonet.com/), a consortium of 8 laboratories across Europe studying the evolution of gene regulatory networks.

Selected publications

  • Pavlopoulos, A. and Akam, M. (2011). The Hox gene Ultrabithorax subtly regulates distinct sets of target genes at successive stages of haltere morphogenesis and differentiation. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA  108:2855-2860.
  • Eriksson, J., Tait, N. N., Budd, G. E., Janssen, R. and Akam, M. (2010) Head patterning and Hox gene expression in an onychophoran and its implications for the arthropod head problem. Dev. Genes Evol. 22, 117-122
  • Garcia-Solache, M., Jaeger, J. and Akam, M. (2010) A systematic analysis of the gap gene system in the moth midge Clogmia albipunctata. Dev. Biol. 344, 306-318
  • Vedel, V., Apostolou, Z., Arthur, W., Akam, M. and Brena, C. (2010)  An early temperature sensitive period for the variation in segment number in the centipede Strigamia maritima. Evolution and Development 12, 347-352.
  • Eriksson, B. J., Tait, N. N., Budd, G. E., and Akam, M. (2009) The  involvement of engrailed and wingless during segmentation in the onychophoran Euperipatoides kanangrensis. Dev. Genes Evol. 219, 249-264.
  • Chipman, A. D. and Akam, M. (2008). The segmentation cascade in the centipede Strigamia maritima: Involvement of the Notch pathway and pair-rule gene homologues. Dev. Biol.319, 160-169
  • Brena, C., Chipman, A. D., Minelli, A. and Akam, M. (2006). The expression of trunk Hox genes in the centipede Strigamia maritima: Sense and antisense transcripts. Evol. Dev. 8:252-265.
  • Peel, A. D., Telford, M.J. and Akam, M. (2006). The evolution of hexapod engrailed-family genes: Evidence for conservation and concerted evolution. Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. B273:1733-1742
  • Peel, A. D., Chipman, A. D. and Akam, M. (2005). Arthropod segmentation: Beyond the Drosophila paradigm. Nature Rev. Genet. 6:905-916
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