EvodevoPub Date : 2024-06-04DOI: 10.1186/s13227-024-00227-1
Ekin Tilic, Norio Miyamoto, Maria Herranz, Katrine Worsaae
{"title":"Hooked on zombie worms? Genetic blueprints of bristle formation in Osedax japonicus (Annelida).","authors":"Ekin Tilic, Norio Miyamoto, Maria Herranz, Katrine Worsaae","doi":"10.1186/s13227-024-00227-1","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s13227-024-00227-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>This study sheds light on the genetic blueprints of chaetogenesis (bristle formation), a complex biomineralization process essential not only for the diverse group of bristle worms (annelids) but also for other spiralians. We explore the complex genetic mechanisms behind chaetae formation in Osedax japonicus, the bone-devouring deep-sea worm known for its unique ecological niche and morphological adaptations.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>We characterized the chaetal structure and musculature using electron microscopy and immunohistochemistry, and combined RNAseq of larval stages with in-situ hybridization chain reaction (HCR) to reveal gene expression patterns integral to chaetogenesis. Our findings pinpoint a distinct surge in gene expression during the larval stage of active chaetogenesis, identifying specific genes and cells involved.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Our research underscores the value of studying on non-model, \"aberrant\" organisms like Osedax, whose unique, temporally restricted chaetogenesis provided insights into elevated gene expression across specific larval stages and led to the identification of genes critical for chaetae formation. The genes identified as directly involved in chaetogenesis lay the groundwork for future comparative studies across Annelida and Spiralia, potentially elucidating the homology of chaetae-like chitinous structures and their evolution.</p>","PeriodicalId":49076,"journal":{"name":"Evodevo","volume":"15 1","pages":"7"},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11149249/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141238564","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EvodevoPub Date : 2024-05-25DOI: 10.1186/s13227-024-00225-3
Jason W. Johns, Ya Min, Evangeline S. Ballerini, Elena M. Kramer, Scott A. Hodges
{"title":"Loss of staminodes in Aquilegia jonesii reveals a fading stamen–staminode boundary","authors":"Jason W. Johns, Ya Min, Evangeline S. Ballerini, Elena M. Kramer, Scott A. Hodges","doi":"10.1186/s13227-024-00225-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s13227-024-00225-3","url":null,"abstract":"The modification of fertile stamens into sterile staminodes has occurred independently many times in the flowering plant lineage. In the genus Aquilegia (columbine) and its closest relatives, the two stamen whorls closest to the carpels have been converted to staminodes. In Aquilegia, the only genetic analyses of staminode development have been reverse genetic approaches revealing that B-class floral identity genes are involved. A. jonesii, the only species of columbine where staminodes have reverted to fertile stamens, allows us to explore the genetic architecture of staminode development using a forward genetic approach. We performed QTL analysis using an outcrossed F2 population between A. jonesii and a horticultural variety that makes fully developed staminodes, A. coerulea ‘Origami’. Our results reveal a polygenic basis for staminode loss where the two staminode whorls are under some level of independent control. We also discovered that staminode loss in A. jonesii is not complete, in which staminode-like traits sometimes occur in the inner fertile stamens, potentially representing a fading boundary of gene expression. The QTLs identified in this study provide a map to guide future reverse genetic and functional studies examining the genetic basis and evolutionary significance of this trait.","PeriodicalId":49076,"journal":{"name":"Evodevo","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141150230","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EvodevoPub Date : 2024-05-10DOI: 10.1186/s13227-024-00224-4
Daniel J Leite, Anna Schönauer, Grace Blakeley, Amber Harper, Helena Garcia-Castro, Luis Baudouin-Gonzalez, Ruixun Wang, Naïra Sarkis, Alexander Günther Nikola, Venkata Sai Poojitha Koka, Nathan J Kenny, Natascha Turetzek, Matthias Pechmann, Jordi Solana, Alistair P McGregor
{"title":"An atlas of spider development at single-cell resolution provides new insights into arthropod embryogenesis.","authors":"Daniel J Leite, Anna Schönauer, Grace Blakeley, Amber Harper, Helena Garcia-Castro, Luis Baudouin-Gonzalez, Ruixun Wang, Naïra Sarkis, Alexander Günther Nikola, Venkata Sai Poojitha Koka, Nathan J Kenny, Natascha Turetzek, Matthias Pechmann, Jordi Solana, Alistair P McGregor","doi":"10.1186/s13227-024-00224-4","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s13227-024-00224-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>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 common house spider Parasteatoda tepidariorum, has made important contributions to understanding the evolution of animal development, including axis formation, segmentation, and patterning. However, we lack knowledge about the cells that build spider embryos, their gene expression profiles and fate. Single-cell transcriptomic analyses have been revolutionary in describing these complex landscapes of cellular genetics in a range of animals. Therefore, we carried out single-cell RNA sequencing of P. tepidariorum embryos at stages 7, 8 and 9, which encompass the establishment and patterning of the body plan, and initial differentiation of many tissues and organs. We identified 20 cell clusters, from 18.5 k cells, which were marked by many developmental toolkit genes, as well as a plethora of genes not previously investigated. We found differences in the cell cycle transcriptional signatures, suggestive of different proliferation dynamics, which related to distinctions between endodermal and some mesodermal clusters, compared with ectodermal clusters. We identified many Hox genes as markers of cell clusters, and Hox gene ohnologs were often present in different clusters. This provided additional evidence of sub- and/or neo-functionalisation of these important developmental genes after the whole genome duplication in an arachnopulmonate ancestor (spiders, scorpions, and related orders). We also examined the spatial expression of marker genes for each cluster to generate a comprehensive cell atlas of these embryonic stages. This revealed new insights into the cellular basis and genetic regulation of head patterning, hematopoiesis, limb development, gut development, and posterior segmentation. This atlas will serve as a platform for future analysis of spider cell specification and fate, and studying the evolution of these processes among animals at cellular resolution.</p>","PeriodicalId":49076,"journal":{"name":"Evodevo","volume":"15 1","pages":"5"},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11083766/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140904947","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EvodevoPub Date : 2024-04-05DOI: 10.1186/s13227-024-00223-5
Yonggang Hu, Jordan R. Crabtree, Anna L. M. Macagno, Armin P. Moczek
{"title":"Histone deacetylases regulate organ-specific growth in a horned beetle","authors":"Yonggang Hu, Jordan R. Crabtree, Anna L. M. Macagno, Armin P. Moczek","doi":"10.1186/s13227-024-00223-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s13227-024-00223-5","url":null,"abstract":"Nutrient availability is among the most widespread means by which environmental variability affects developmental outcomes. Because almost all cells within an individual organism share the same genome, structure-specific growth responses must result from changes in gene regulation. Earlier work suggested that histone deacetylases (HDACs) may serve as epigenetic regulators linking nutritional conditions to trait-specific development. Here we expand on this work by assessing the function of diverse HDACs in the structure-specific growth of both sex-shared and sex-specific traits including evolutionarily novel structures in the horned dung beetle Onthophagus taurus. We identified five HDAC members whose downregulation yielded highly variable mortality depending on which HDAC member was targeted. We then show that HDAC1, 3, and 4 operate in both a gene- and trait-specific manner in the regulation of nutrition-responsiveness of appendage size and shape. Specifically, HDAC 1, 3, or 4 knockdown diminished wing size similarly while leg development was differentially affected by RNAi targeting HDAC3 and HDAC4. In addition, depletion of HDAC3 transcript resulted in a more rounded shape of genitalia at the pupal stage and decreased the length of adult aedeagus across all body sizes. Most importantly, we find that HDAC3 and HDAC4 pattern the morphology and regulate the scaling of evolutionarily novel head and thoracic horns as a function of nutritional variation. Collectively, our results suggest that both functional overlap and division of labor among HDAC members contribute to morphological diversification of both conventional and recently evolved appendages. More generally, our work raises the possibility that HDAC-mediated scaling relationships and their evolution may underpin morphological diversification within and across insect species broadly.","PeriodicalId":49076,"journal":{"name":"Evodevo","volume":"51 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-04-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140565168","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EvodevoPub Date : 2024-02-17DOI: 10.1186/s13227-023-00220-0
Margherita Perillo, Rosa Maria Sepe, Periklis Paganos, Alfonso Toscano, Rossella Annunziata
{"title":"Sea cucumbers: an emerging system in evo-devo.","authors":"Margherita Perillo, Rosa Maria Sepe, Periklis Paganos, Alfonso Toscano, Rossella Annunziata","doi":"10.1186/s13227-023-00220-0","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s13227-023-00220-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>A challenge for evolutionary developmental (evo-devo) biology is to expand the breadth of research organisms used to investigate how animal diversity has evolved through changes in embryonic development. New experimental systems should couple a relevant phylogenetic position with available molecular tools and genomic resources. As a phylum of the sister group to chordates, echinoderms extensively contributed to our knowledge of embryonic patterning, organ development and cell-type evolution. Echinoderms display a variety of larval forms with diverse shapes, making them a suitable group to compare the evolution of embryonic developmental strategies. However, because of the laboratory accessibility and the already available techniques, most studies focus on sea urchins and sea stars mainly. As a comparative approach, the field would benefit from including information on other members of this group, like the sea cucumbers (holothuroids), for which little is known on the molecular basis of their development. Here, we review the spawning and culture methods, the available morphological and molecular information, and the current state of genomic and transcriptomic resources on sea cucumbers. With the goal of making this system accessible to the broader community, we discuss how sea cucumber embryos and larvae can be a powerful system to address the open questions in evo-devo, including understanding the origins of bilaterian structures.</p>","PeriodicalId":49076,"journal":{"name":"Evodevo","volume":"15 1","pages":"3"},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10874539/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139898219","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EvodevoPub Date : 2024-02-07DOI: 10.1186/s13227-024-00221-7
Taro Nojiri, Masaki Takechi, Toshiko Furutera, Nicolas L M Brualla, Sachiko Iseki, Dai Fukui, Vuong Tan Tu, Fumiya Meguro, Daisuke Koyabu
{"title":"Development of the hyolaryngeal architecture in horseshoe bats: insights into the evolution of the pulse generation for laryngeal echolocation.","authors":"Taro Nojiri, Masaki Takechi, Toshiko Furutera, Nicolas L M Brualla, Sachiko Iseki, Dai Fukui, Vuong Tan Tu, Fumiya Meguro, Daisuke Koyabu","doi":"10.1186/s13227-024-00221-7","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s13227-024-00221-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>The hyolaryngeal apparatus generates biosonar pulses in the laryngeally echolocating bats. The cartilage and muscles comprising the hyolarynx of laryngeally echolocating bats are morphologically modified compared to those of non-bat mammals, as represented by the hypertrophied intrinsic laryngeal muscle. Despite its crucial contribution to laryngeal echolocation, how the development of the hyolarynx in bats differs from that of other mammals is poorly documented. The genus Rhinolophus is one of the most sophisticated laryngeal echolocators, with the highest pulse frequency in bats. The present study provides the first detailed description of the three-dimensional anatomy and development of the skeleton, cartilage, muscle, and innervation patterns of the hyolaryngeal apparatus in two species of rhinolophid bats using micro-computed tomography images and serial tissue sections and compares them with those of laboratory mice. Furthermore, we measured the peak frequency of the echolocation pulse in active juvenile and adult individuals to correspond to echolocation pulses with hyolaryngeal morphology at each postnatal stage.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>We found that the sagittal crests of the cricoid cartilage separated the dorsal cricoarytenoid muscle in horseshoe bats, indicating that this unique morphology may be required to reinforce the repeated closure movement of the glottis during biosonar pulse emission. We also found that the cricothyroid muscle is ventrally hypertrophied throughout ontogeny, and that the cranial laryngeal nerve has a novel branch supplying the hypertrophied region of this muscle. Our bioacoustic analyses revealed that the peak frequency shows negative allometry against skull growth, and that the volumetric growth of all laryngeal cartilages is correlated with the pulse peak frequency.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The unique patterns of muscle and innervation revealed in this study appear to have been obtained concomitantly with the acquisition of tracheal chambers in rhinolophids and hipposiderids, improving sound intensity during laryngeal echolocation. In addition, significant protrusion of the sagittal crest of the cricoid cartilage and the separated dorsal cricoarytenoid muscle may contribute to the sophisticated biosonar in this laryngeally echolocating lineage. Furthermore, our bioacoustic data suggested that the mineralization of these cartilages underpins the ontogeny of echolocation pulse generation. The results of the present study provide crucial insights into how the anatomy and development of the hyolaryngeal apparatus shape the acoustic diversity in bats.</p>","PeriodicalId":49076,"journal":{"name":"Evodevo","volume":"15 1","pages":"2"},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-02-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10851524/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139703865","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EvodevoPub Date : 2024-02-01DOI: 10.1186/s13227-024-00222-6
Thurston Lacalli
{"title":"The Cambrian fossil Pikaia, and the origin of chordate somites","authors":"Thurston Lacalli","doi":"10.1186/s13227-024-00222-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s13227-024-00222-6","url":null,"abstract":"The Middle Cambrian fossil Pikaia has a regular series of vertical bands that, assuming chordate affinities, can be interpreted as septa positioned between serial myotomes. Whether Pikaia has a notochord and nerve cord is less certain, as the dorsal organ, which has no obvious counterpart in living chordates, is the only clearly defined axial structure extending the length of the body. Without a notochord to serve as a reference point, the location of the nerve cord is then conjectural, which begs the question of how a dorsal neural center devoted to somite innervation would first have arisen from a more diffuse ancestral plexus of intraepithelial nerves. This question is examined using hemichordates as a reference point, first for the information they provide on the organization of the ancestral deuterostome nervous system, and second, extending the analysis of E. E. Ruppert, to explain why neural infoldings like the enteropneust collar cord would first have evolved. Both implicate the medial surface of the anterior-most part of the metacoel as the likely site for the evolution of the first somites. The analysis highlights the importance of the somatobranchial condition in chordates, meaning the linkage between the anterior trunk, hox1 expression, and the beginning of the gill series and somites. This feature is arguably a valid criterion by which to assess extinct taxa from the Cambrian that resemble chordates (e.g., vetulicolians and yunnanozoans), but may be unrelated to them. In a more speculative vein, the nature of the dorsal organ is discussed, including the possibility that it is an expanded neural tube combining neural and support functions in one structure.","PeriodicalId":49076,"journal":{"name":"Evodevo","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139656979","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EvodevoPub Date : 2023-12-20DOI: 10.1186/s13227-023-00219-7
Macie M. Chess, William Douglas, Josiah Saunders, Charles A. Ettensohn
{"title":"Genome-wide identification and spatiotemporal expression analysis of cadherin superfamily members in echinoderms","authors":"Macie M. Chess, William Douglas, Josiah Saunders, Charles A. Ettensohn","doi":"10.1186/s13227-023-00219-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s13227-023-00219-7","url":null,"abstract":"Cadherins are calcium-dependent transmembrane cell–cell adhesion proteins that are essential for metazoan development. They consist of three subfamilies: classical cadherins, which bind catenin, protocadherins, which contain 6–7 calcium-binding repeat domains, and atypical cadherins. Their functions include forming adherens junctions, establishing planar cell polarity (PCP), and regulating cell shape, proliferation, and migration. Because they are basal deuterostomes, echinoderms provide important insights into bilaterian evolution, but their only well-characterized cadherin is G-cadherin, a classical cadherin that is expressed by many embryonic epithelia. We aimed to better characterize echinoderm cadherins by conducting phylogenetic analyses and examining the spatiotemporal expression patterns of cadherin-encoding genes during Strongylocentrotus purpuratus development. Our phylogenetic analyses conducted on two echinoid, three asteroid, and one crinoid species identified ten echinoderm cadherins, including one deuterostome-specific ortholog, cadherin-23, and an echinoderm-specific atypical cadherin that possibly arose in an echinoid-asteroid ancestor. Catenin-binding domains in dachsous-2 orthologs were found to be a deuterostome-specific innovation that was selectively lost in mouse, while those in Fat4 orthologs appeared to be Ambulacraria-specific and were selectively lost in non-crinoid echinoderms. The identified suite of echinoderm cadherins lacks vertebrate-specific innovations but contains two proteins that are present in protostomes and absent from mouse. The spatiotemporal expression patterns of four embryonically expressed cadherins (fat atypical cadherins 1 and 4, dachsous-2, and protocadherin-9) were dynamic and mirrored the expression pattern of Frizzled 5/8, a non-canonical Wnt PCP pathway receptor protein essential for archenteron morphogenesis. The echinoderm cadherin toolkit is more similar to that of an ancient bilaterian predating protostomes and deuterostomes than it is to the suite of cadherins found in extant vertebrates. However, it also appears that deuterostomes underwent several cadherin-related innovations. Based on their similar spatiotemporal expression patterns and orthologous relationships to PCP-related and tumor-suppressing proteins, we hypothesize that sea urchin cadherins may play a role in regulating the shape and growth of embryonic epithelia and organs. Future experiments will examine cadherin expression in non-echinoid echinoderms and explore the functions of cadherins during echinoderm development.","PeriodicalId":49076,"journal":{"name":"Evodevo","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2023-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138825884","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EvodevoPub Date : 2023-09-21DOI: 10.1186/s13227-023-00218-8
Kyle J McCulloch, Leslie S Babonis, Alicia Liu, Christina M Daly, Mark Q Martindale, Kristen M Koenig
{"title":"Nematostella vectensis exemplifies the exceptional expansion and diversity of opsins in the eyeless Hexacorallia.","authors":"Kyle J McCulloch, Leslie S Babonis, Alicia Liu, Christina M Daly, Mark Q Martindale, Kristen M Koenig","doi":"10.1186/s13227-023-00218-8","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s13227-023-00218-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Opsins are the primary proteins responsible for light detection in animals. Cnidarians (jellyfish, sea anemones, corals) have diverse visual systems that have evolved in parallel with bilaterians (squid, flies, fish) for hundreds of millions of years. Medusozoans (e.g., jellyfish, hydroids) have evolved eyes multiple times, each time independently incorporating distinct opsin orthologs. Anthozoans (e.g., corals, sea anemones,) have diverse light-mediated behaviors and, despite being eyeless, exhibit more extensive opsin duplications than medusozoans. To better understand the evolution of photosensitivity in animals without eyes, we increased anthozoan representation in the phylogeny of animal opsins and investigated the large but poorly characterized opsin family in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>We analyzed genomic and transcriptomic data from 16 species of cnidarians to generate a large opsin phylogeny (708 sequences) with the largest sampling of anthozoan sequences to date. We identified 29 opsins from N. vectensis (NvOpsins) with high confidence, using transcriptomic and genomic datasets. We found that lineage-specific opsin duplications are common across Cnidaria, with anthozoan lineages exhibiting among the highest numbers of opsins in animals. To establish putative photosensory function of NvOpsins, we identified canonically conserved protein domains and amino acid sequences essential for opsin function in other animal species. We show high sequence diversity among NvOpsins at sites important for photoreception and transduction, suggesting potentially diverse functions. We further examined the spatiotemporal expression of NvOpsins and found both dynamic expression of opsins during embryonic development and sexually dimorphic opsin expression in adults.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>These data show that lineage-specific duplication and divergence has led to expansive diversity of opsins in eyeless cnidarians, suggesting opsins from these animals may exhibit novel biochemical functions. The variable expression patterns of opsins in N. vectensis suggest opsin gene duplications allowed for a radiation of unique sensory cell types with tissue- and stage-specific functions. This diffuse network of distinct sensory cell types could be an adaptive solution for varied sensory tasks experienced in distinct life history stages in Anthozoans.</p>","PeriodicalId":49076,"journal":{"name":"Evodevo","volume":"14 1","pages":"14"},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2023-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10512536/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41160305","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EvodevoPub Date : 2023-08-24DOI: 10.1186/s13227-023-00217-9
James M Gahan, Paulyn Cartwright, Matthew L Nicotra, Christine E Schnitzler, Patrick R H Steinmetz, Celina E Juliano
{"title":"Cnidofest 2022: hot topics in cnidarian research.","authors":"James M Gahan, Paulyn Cartwright, Matthew L Nicotra, Christine E Schnitzler, Patrick R H Steinmetz, Celina E Juliano","doi":"10.1186/s13227-023-00217-9","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s13227-023-00217-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The second annual Cnidarian Model Systems Meeting, aka \"Cnidofest\", took place in Davis, California from 7 to 10th of September, 2022. The meeting brought together scientists using cnidarians to study molecular and cellular biology, development and regeneration, evo-devo, neurobiology, symbiosis, physiology, and comparative genomics. The diversity of topics and species represented in presentations highlighted the importance and versatility of cnidarians in addressing a wide variety of biological questions. In keeping with the spirit of the first meeting (and its predecessor, Hydroidfest), almost 75% of oral presentations were given by early career researchers (i.e., graduate students and postdocs). In this review, we present research highlights from the meeting.</p>","PeriodicalId":49076,"journal":{"name":"Evodevo","volume":"14 1","pages":"13"},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2023-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10463417/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10121531","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}