Here they use scRNA-seq to show that, in the hemichordate Schizocardium californicum, ectoderm and endoderm shift transcriptional identity from larva to adult while mesoderm is transcriptionally conserved, making life stage a major axis of cellular state.

Large-scale genome initiatives are transforming biodiversity genomics, but genomes remain taxonomically sparse and difficult to compare across species. Kapli and colleagues argue that natural history ...

YouTube video by nature video

The evolutionary origin of the bilaterian gut with two openings is debated. Expression in xenacoelomorphs, the sister group to bilaterians, of genes involved in bilaterian gut patterning suggests that...

AbstractMotivation. Incomplete gene models negatively impact single-cell gene expression quantification. This is particularly true in non-model species whe

Abstract. Neuropeptides derived from larger precursor proteins are neuronal signalling molecules that regulate physiological processes and behaviour. Some

Experiments using the comb jelly Mnemiopsis leidyi and the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis reveal that the emergence of a core signalling pathway may have been a key innovation enabling the transit...

Nature - A unicellular relative links aggregative multicellularity to animal origins

This paper presents sPYce, a method that integrates single-nucleus ATAC-seq data across species, allowing for comparison of gene regulatory evolution across species.

Experiments in the cnidarian Nematostella vectensis show a role of gene body methylation in transposable element suppression and that epigenetic inheritance is constrained by chromatin context and tra...

Nature - Single-cell transcriptomics combined with morphological and ecological data show that the rapid evolutionary radiation of cichlid fishes in Lake Tanganyika was accompanied by dietary...

EMBL and its community are deeply saddened by the death of Peer Bork, the organisation’s Interim Director General. 

The conservation of genome regulatory elements over long periods of evolution is not limited to vertebrates, as previously thought, but also in echinoderms (invertebrates). This is one of the most not...

Bilaterian guts share conserved embryonic patterning, but how does this relates to adult gut organization? This study uses transcriptomic analyses across five species to reveal conserved transcription...

Nature Ecology & Evolution - Analysis of the 3D chromatin architecture and cis-regulatory elements in a sea urchin and a sea star reveals mechanisms of 3D chromatin organization in echinoderms...

Analysis of the 3D chromatin architecture and cis-regulatory elements in a sea urchin and a sea star reveals mechanisms of 3D chromatin organization in echinoderms and the long-term evolutionary dynam...

This study reconstructs the gene regulatory networks that define cell types in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis, providing a valuable resource for comparative regulatory genomics and the evoluti...