-
Article
Evolution of tissue-specific expression of ancestral genes across vertebrates and insects
Regulation of gene expression is arguably the main mechanism underlying the phenotypic diversity of tissues within and between species. Here we assembled an extensive transcriptomic dataset covering 8 tissues ...
-
Article
Open AccessAn amphioxus neurula stage cell atlas supports a complex scenario for the emergence of vertebrate head mesoderm
The emergence of new structures can often be linked to the evolution of novel cell types that follows the rewiring of developmental gene regulatory subnetworks. Vertebrates are characterized by a complex body ...
-
Article
Open AccessParallel evolution of amphioxus and vertebrate small-scale gene duplications
Amphioxus are non-vertebrate chordates characterized by a slow morphological and molecular evolution. They share the basic chordate body-plan and genome organization with vertebrates but lack their 2R whole-genom...
-
Article
The emergence of the brain non-CpG methylation system in vertebrates
Mammalian brains feature exceptionally high levels of non-CpG DNA methylation alongside the canonical form of CpG methylation. Non-CpG methylation plays a critical regulatory role in cognitive function, which ...
-
Protocol
Spawning Induction and Embryo Micromanipulation Protocols in the Amphioxus Branchiostoma lanceolatum
In the last decades, the cephalochordate amphioxus has reached a peculiar place in research laboratories as an excellent animal model to answer Evo/Devo questions. Nevertheless, mainly due to its restricted sp...
-
Article
Genetic regulation of amphioxus somitogenesis informs the evolution of the vertebrate head mesoderm
The evolution of vertebrates from an ancestral chordate was accompanied by the acquisition of a predatory lifestyle closely associated to the origin of a novel anterior structure, the highly specialized head. ...
-
Article
Open AccessAmphioxus functional genomics and the origins of vertebrate gene regulation
Vertebrates have greatly elaborated the basic chordate body plan and evolved highly distinctive genomes that have been sculpted by two whole-genome duplications. Here we sequence the genome of the Mediterranea...
-
Article
Open AccessWnt evolution and function shuffling in liberal and conservative chordate genomes
What impact gene loss has on the evolution of developmental processes, and how function shuffling has affected retained genes driving essential biological processes, remain open questions in the fields of geno...
-
Article
Nodal–Activin pathway is a conserved neural induction signal in chordates
Neural induction is the process through which pluripotent cells are committed to a neural fate. This first step of central nervous system formation is triggered by the ‘Spemann organizer’ in amphibians and by ...
-
Article
A single three-dimensional chromatin compartment in amphioxus indicates a stepwise evolution of vertebrate Hox bimodal regulation
José Luis Gómez-Skarmeta, Hector Escrivá, Ignacio Maeso, Damien Devos and colleagues perform 4C-seq profiling of the Hox cluster in amphioxus embryos and find that, unlike in vertebrate embryos, the cluster is...
-
Article
Open AccessEvolution of bilaterian central nervous systems: a single origin?
The question of whether the ancestral bilaterian had a central nervous system (CNS) or a diffuse ectodermal nervous system has been hotly debated. Considerable evidence supports the theory that a CNS evolved j...
-
Article
Open AccessFGFRL1 is a neglected putative actor of the FGF signalling pathway present in all major metazoan phyla
Fibroblast Growth Factors (FGF) and their receptors are well known for having major implications in cell signalling controlling embryonic development. Recently, a gene coding for a protein closely related to F...
-
Article
Evidence for stasis and not genetic piracy in developmental expression patterns of Branchiostoma lanceolatum and Branchiostoma floridae, two amphioxus species that have evolved independently over the course of 200 Myr
Cephalochordates, the most basal extant group in the phylum Chordata, are represented chiefly by about 20 species of the genus Branchiostoma, commonly called amphioxus or lancelets. In recent years, insights into...
-
Article
Open AccessAn amphioxus orthologue of the estrogen receptor that does not bind estradiol: Insights into estrogen receptor evolution
The origin of nuclear receptors (NRs) and the question whether the ancestral NR was a liganded or an unliganded transcription factor has been recently debated. To obtain insight into the evolution of the ligan...
-
Chapter
Lactoferrin Almost Absent from Lactating Rat Mammary Gland is Replaced by Transferrin
Lactoferrin (Lf) is a major milk whey protein in humans, but in some species (rabbit and rat) is virtually undetectable, whereas transferrin (Tf) is present at a high concentration in rabbit and mouse milk, bu...
