Background The duplication of genes can occur through various mechanisms and is thought
to make a major contribution to the evolutionary diversification of organisms. There is …

Phoneutria nigriventer is one of the largest existing true spiders and one of the few
considered medically relevant. Its venom contains several neurotoxic peptides that act on …

The common house spider Parasteatoda tepidariorum, belonging to the Chelicerata in the
phylum Arthropoda, has emerged as an experimental system for studying mechanisms of …

Cobweb spiders (Theridiidae) are highly diverse from the perspective of species richness,
morphological diversity, variety of web architecture, and behavioral repertoires. The family …

One of the key morphogenetic processes used during development is the controlled
intercalation of cells between their neighbors. This process has been co-opted into a range …

Spiders are a diverse order of chelicerates that diverged from other arthropods over 500
million years ago. Research on spider embryogenesis, particularly studies using the …

Unlike hexapods and vertebrates, in chelicerates, knowledge of the specific molecules
involved in chemoreception comes exclusively from the comparative analysis of genome …

Background Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies are arguably the most
revolutionary technical development to join the list of tools available to molecular biologists …

Dorsoventral pattering relies on Toll and BMP signalling in all insects studied so far, with
variations in the relative contributions of both pathways. Drosophila and the beetle Tribolium …

Background Black widow spiders are infamous for their neurotoxic venom, which can cause
extreme and long-lasting pain. This unusual venom is dominated by latrotoxins and …