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.

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...

Chemical neurotransmission was a key animal innovation, enabling multicellular coordination of physiology and locomotion. Sponges are early-diverging animals that lack neurons and muscles, yet still c...

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...

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...

61 species, 13 phyla, one simple geometric rule that appears to set when every embryo starts speaking through its own genome.

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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...

Il nuovo progetto GRNevo, finanziato con un grant FIS-3 Advanced da 1,9 milioni di euro, studierà come si formano i neuroni durante lo sviluppo in specie animali molto distanti tra loro: dal moscerino...

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...

An international team of researchers, including scientists from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, has uncovered a surprisingly complex nervous system in sea urchins. The animals appear to possess an “...

A sea urchin is a head with a brain-like organization and a vertebrate-type retinal signature.

One of the most intriguing questions in developmental biology is how a single cell, the zygote, gives rise to hundreds or millions of distinct cell types during embryogenesis. Decades of research have...

Nature Reviews Neuroscience - Recent studies have shed further light on the evolutionary origins of chemical synapses, In this Review, Colgren and Burkhardt explore how ancient proteins were...

Despite the growing abundance of sequenced animal genomes, we only have detailed knowledge of regula

Despite the growing abundance of sequenced animal genomes, we only have detailed knowledge of regulatory organization for a handful of lineages, particularly flies and vertebrates. These two groups of...