Cnidarians and ancestral genetic complexity in the animal kingdom

David J. Miller; Eldon E. Ball; Ulrich Technau

doi:10.1016/j.tig.2005.08.002

Cnidarians and ancestral genetic complexity in the animal kingdom

David J. Miller^*, Eldon E. Ball, Ulrich Technau

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Short survey › peer-review

104 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Eleven of the twelve recognized wingless (Wnt) subfamilies are represented in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis, indicating that this developmentally important gene family was already fully diversified in the common ancestor of 'higher' animals. In deuterostomes, although duplications have occurred, no novel subfamilies of Wnts have evolved. By contrast, the protostomes Drosophila and Caenorhabditis have lost half of the ancestral Wnts. This pattern - loss of genes from an ancestrally complex state - might be more important in animal evolution than previously recognized.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	536-539
Number of pages	4
Journal	Trends in Genetics
Volume	21
Issue number	10
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tig.2005.08.002
Publication status	Published - Oct 2005

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AB - Eleven of the twelve recognized wingless (Wnt) subfamilies are represented in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis, indicating that this developmentally important gene family was already fully diversified in the common ancestor of 'higher' animals. In deuterostomes, although duplications have occurred, no novel subfamilies of Wnts have evolved. By contrast, the protostomes Drosophila and Caenorhabditis have lost half of the ancestral Wnts. This pattern - loss of genes from an ancestrally complex state - might be more important in animal evolution than previously recognized.

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DO - 10.1016/j.tig.2005.08.002

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JO - Trends in Genetics

JF - Trends in Genetics

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ER -

Cnidarians and ancestral genetic complexity in the animal kingdom

Abstract

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