Divergent mechanisms regulate conserved cardiopharyngeal development and gene expression in distantly related ascidians
- New York University, United States
- Michigan State University, United States
- Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Italy
- University of Washington, United States
Abstract
Ascidians present a striking dichotomy between conserved phenotypes and divergent genomes: embryonic cell lineages and gene expression patterns are conserved between distantly related species. Much research has focused on Ciona or Halocynthia spp. but development in other ascidians remains poorly characterized. Here we surveyed the multipotent myogenic B7.5 lineage in Molgula spp. Comparisons to the homologous lineage in Ciona revealed identical cell division and fate specification events that result in segregation of larval, cardiac, and pharyngeal muscle progenitors. Moreover, the expression patterns of key regulators are conserved, but cross-species transgenic assays uncovered incompatibility, or "unintelligibility", of orthologous cis-regulatory sequences between Molgula and Ciona. These sequences drive identical expression patterns that are not recapitulated in cross-species assays. We show that this unintelligibility is likely due to changes in both cis- and trans-actingelements, hinting at widespread and frequent turnover of regulatory mechanisms underlying otherwise conserved aspects of ascidian embryogenesis.
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© 2014, Stolfi et al.
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Divergent mechanisms regulate conserved cardiopharyngeal development and gene expression in distantly related ascidians
eLife 3:e03728.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.03728
