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Kinorhynchs are ecdysozoan animals with a phylogenetic position close to priapulids and loriciferans. To understand the nature of segmentation within Kinorhyncha and to infer a probable ancestry of segmentatio...
Many insects host their obligate, maternally transmitted symbiotic bacteria in specialized cells called bacteriocytes. One of the best-studied insect nutritional endosymbioses is that of the aphid and its endo...
Basic Helix-Loop-Helix (bHLH) genes encode a large family of eukaryotic transcription factors, categorized into six high-order groups: pan-eukaryotic group B involved in regulation of cell cycle, metabolism, a...
Gonads are specialized gamete-producing structures that, despite their functional importance, are generated by diverse mechanisms across groups of animals and can be among the most plastic organs of the body. ...
Genomic analysis has upended chordate phylogeny, placing the tunicates as the sister group to the vertebrates. This taxonomic rearrangement raises questions about the emergence of a tunicate/vertebrate ancestor.
Annelida is a morphologically diverse animal group that exhibits a remarkable variety in nervous system architecture (e.g., number and location of longitudinal cords, architecture of the brain). Despite this h...
Here we present a report on Ctenopalooza: A meeting of ctenophorologists held at the Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience in St. Augustine, FL, USA, on March 14–15, 2016. In this report, we provide a summa...
Dbx1 is a homeodomain transcription factor involved in neuronal fate specification belonging to a widely conserved family among bilaterians. In mammals, Dbx1 was proposed to act as a transcriptional repressor ...
An essential developmental pathway in sexually reproducing animals is the specification of germ cells and the differentiation of mature gametes, sperm and oocytes. The “germline” genes vasa, nanos and piwi are...
Bocconia and Macleaya are the only genera of the poppy family (Papaveraceae) lacking petals; however, the developmental and genetic processes underlying such evolutionary shift have no...
Organisms develop and evolve in a modular fashion, but how individual modules interact with the environment remains poorly understood. Phenotypically plastic traits are often under selection, and studies are n...
The evolution of animal segmentation is a major research focus within the field of evolutionary–developmental biology. Most studied segmented animals generate their segments in a repetitive, anterior-to-poster...
The microvillus is a versatile organelle that serves important functions in disparate animal cell types. However, from a molecular perspective, the microvillus has been well studied in only a few, predominantl...
New branches within the embryonic chicken lung form via apical constriction, in which epithelial cells in the primary bronchus become trapezoidal in shape. These branches form at precise locations along the pr...
The ancestral arthropod is believed to have had a clustered arrangement of ten Hox genes. Within arthropods, Hox gene mutations result in transformation of segment identities. Despite the fact that variation i...
Platynereis and other polychaete annelids with homonomous segmentation are regarded to closely resemble ancestral forms of bilateria. The head region comprises the prostomium, the peri...
Germ cells are specified during early development and are responsible for generating gametes in the adult. After germ cells are specified, they typically migrate to a particular niche in the organism where the...
Shifts in floral form across angiosperms, particularly from radially symmetrical to bilaterally symmetrical flowers, are often associated with shifts in speciation rates and changes in pollination syndrome. Gr...
Freshwater planarians are well known for their regenerative abilities. Less well known is how planarians maintain spatial patterning in long-lived adult animals or how they re-pattern tissues during regenerat...
The aquiferous body plan of poriferans revolves around internal chambers comprised of choanocytes, a cell type structurally similar to choanoflagellates. These choanocyte chambers perform a range of physiologi...
The Neotropical frog genera Ceratophrys, Chacophrys and Lepidobatrachus form the monophyletic family Ceratophryidae. Although in- and out-group relationships are not fully resolved, the monophyly of the three ge...
The Hippo pathway regulates growth rate and organ size in fly and mouse, notably through control of cell proliferation. Molecular interactions at the heart of this pathway are known to have originated in the u...
Cichlid fishes from the Rift Lakes of East Africa have undergone the most spectacular adaptive radiations in vertebrate history. Eco-morphological adaptations in lakes Victoria, Malawi and Tanganyika have resu...
The evolutionary mechanisms involved in shaping complex gene regulatory networks (GRN) that encode for morphologically similar structures in distantly related animals remain elusive. In this context, echinoder...
Obligate intracellular symbionts of insects are metabolically and developmentally integrated with their hosts. Typically, reproduction fails in many insect nutritional endosymbioses when host insects are cured...
It has been hypothesized that the ParaHox gene Gsx patterned the foregut of the last common bilaterian ancestor. This notion was corroborated by Gsx expression in three out of four lophotrochozoan species, severa...
Development of cerebral eyes is generally based on fine-tuned networks and closely intertwined with the formation of brain and head. Consistently and best studied in insects and vertebrates, many signaling pat...
Fish correspond to the most diversified phylum among vertebrates with a large variety of species. Even if general features are distinguishable during the embryogenesis, several differences in term of timing, o...
We analyze the interdisciplinary state of evolutionary developmental biology based on the diversity of themes, taxa, levels of organization and scientists at the first meeting of the Pan-American Society for E...
Wnt signaling pathways are highly conserved signal transduction pathways important for axis formation, cell fate specification, and organogenesis throughout metazoan development. Within the various Wnt pathway...
The origin of discrete novelties remains unclear. Some authors suggest that qualitative phenotypic changes may result from the reorganization of preexisting phenotypic traits during development (i.e., developm...
The variation in mandibular morphology of mammals reflects specialisations for different diets. Omnivorous and carnivorous mammals posses large mandibular coronoid processes, while herbivorous mammals have pro...
The evolution and development of sexual dimorphism illuminates a central question in biology: How do similar genomes produce different phenotypes? In an XX/XO system especially the state of a sexually dimorphi...
The longstanding canonical model of spider gastrulation posits that cell internalization occurs only at a unitary central blastopore; and that the cumulus (dorsal organizer) arises from within the early deep l...
Understanding how genes change during evolution to direct the development of diverse body plans is a major goal of the evo-devo field. Achieving this will require the establishment of new model systems that re...
Introns represent a potentially rich source of existing transcription for the evolution of novel microRNAs (miRNAs). Within the Hox gene clusters, a miRNA gene, miR-615, is located within the intron of the Hoxc5 ...
A notochord is characteristic of developing chordates (which comprise amphioxus, tunicates and vertebrates), and, more arguably, is also found in some other animals. Although notochords have been well reviewed...
In a recent study, we have demonstrated that amelotin (AMTN) gene structure and its expression during amelogenesis have changed during tetrapod evolution. Indeed, this gene is expressed throughout enamel matrix d...
The life cycle of many animals includes a larval stage, which has diversified into an astonishing variety of ecological strategies. The Nemertea is a group of spiralians that exhibits a broad diversity of larv...
The developmental basis of craniofacial morphology hinges on interactions of numerous signalling systems. Extensive craniofacial variation in the polymorphic Arctic charr, a member of the salmonid family, from...
Maximally indirect development via a pilidium larva is unique to the pilidiophoran clade of phylum Nemertea. All other nemerteans have more or less direct development. The origin of pilidial development with d...
A major goal of evolutionary biology is to understand the origins of phenotypic diversity. Changes in development, for instance heterochrony, can be a potent source of phenotypic variation. On the other hand, ...
Gastrulation is a critical step in bilaterian development, directly linked to the segregation of germ layers, establishment of axes, and emergence of the through-gut. Theories about the evolution of gastrulati...
The metagenesis of sessile polyps into pelagic medusae in cnidarians represents one of the most ancient complex life cycles in animals. Interestingly, scyphozoans and hydrozoans generate medusae by apparently ...
Siphonophores (Hydrozoa) have unparalleled colony-level complexity, precision of colony organization, and functional specialization between zooids (i.e., the units that make up colonies). Previous work has sho...
Vertebrate somites are subdivided into lineage compartments, each with distinct cell fates and evolutionary histories. Insights into somite evolution can come from studying amphioxus, the best extant approxima...
The evolutionary origins of cell polarity in metazoan embryos are unclear. In most bilaterian animals, embryonic and cell polarity are set up during embryogenesis with the same molecules being utilized to regu...
Most of our current findings on appendage formation and patterning stem from studies on chordate and ecdysozoan model organisms. However, in order to fully understand the evolution of animal appendages, it is ...
Retinoic acid (RA) signaling controls many developmental processes in chordates, from early axis specification to late organogenesis. The functions of RA are chiefly mediated by a subfamily of nuclear hormone ...
Wnt signaling is one of the earliest and most highly conserved regulatory pathways for the establishment of the body axes during regeneration and early development. In regeneration, body axes determination occ...
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