Universität zu Köln

Ferretti, Luca ORCID: 0000-0001-7578-7301, Kraemer-Eis, Andrea and Schiffer, Philipp H. (2020). Conserved Patterns in Developmental Processes and Phases, Rather than Genes, Unite the Highly Divergent Bilateria. Life-Basel, 10 (9). BASEL: MDPI. ISSN 2075-1729

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Abstract

Bilateria are the predominant clade of animals on Earth. Despite having evolved a wide variety of body plans and developmental modes, they are characterized by common morphological traits. By default, researchers have tried to link clade-specific genes to these traits, thus distinguishing bilaterians from non-bilaterians, by their gene content. Here we argue that it is rather biological processes that unite Bilateria and set them apart from their non-bilaterian sisters, with a less complex body morphology. To test this hypothesis, we compared proteomes of bilaterian and non-bilaterian species in an elaborate computational pipeline, aiming to search for a set of bilaterian-specific genes. Despite the limited confidence in their bilaterian specificity, we nevertheless detected Bilateria-specific functional and developmental patterns in the sub-set of genes conserved in distantly related Bilateria. Using a novel multi-species GO-enrichment method, we determined the functional repertoire of genes that are widely conserved among Bilateria. Analyzing expression profiles in three very distantly related model species-D. melanogaster,D. rerioandC. elegans-we find characteristic peaks at comparable stages of development and a delayed onset of expression in embryos. In particular, the expression of the conserved genes appears to peak at the phylotypic stage of different bilaterian phyla. In summary, our study illustrate how development connects distantly related Bilateria after millions of years of divergence, pointing to processes potentially separating them from non-bilaterians. We argue that evolutionary biologists should return from a purely gene-centric view of evolution and place more focus on analyzing and defining conserved developmental processes and periods.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Ferretti, Luca UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0001-7578-7301 UNSPECIFIED Kraemer-Eis, Andrea UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Schiffer, Philipp H. UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-320392
DOI:	10.3390/life10090182
Journal or Publication Title:	Life-Basel
Volume:	10
Number:	9
Date:	2020
Publisher:	MDPI
Place of Publication:	BASEL
ISSN:	2075-1729
Language:	English
Faculty:	Unspecified
Divisions:	Unspecified
Subjects:	no entry
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language EVOLUTION; GENOME; EXPRESSION; HOURGLASS; ORTHOLOGS; IDENTIFICATION; VERTEBRATE; SUPPORT; ORIGINS; UNCOVER Multiple languages Biology; Microbiology Multiple languages
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/32039