Abstract
The origin of animal multicellularity may be reconstructed by comparing animals with one of their closest living relatives, the choanoflagellate Salpingoeca rosetta. Just as animals develop from a single cell - the zygote - multicellular rosettes of S. rosetta develop from a founding cell. To investigate rosette development, we established forward genetics in S. rosetta. We find that the rosette defect of one mutant, named Rosetteless, maps to a predicted C-type lectin, a class of signaling and adhesion genes required for development and innate immunity in animals. Rosetteless protein is essential for rosette development and forms an extracellular layer that coats and connects the basal poles of each cell in rosettes. This study provides the first link between genotype and phenotype in choanoflagellates and raises the possibility that a protein with C-type lectin-like domains regulated development in the last common ancestor of choanoflagellates and animals.
Article and author information
Author details
Reviewing Editor
- Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stowers Institute for Medical Research, United States
Publication history
- Received: July 17, 2014
- Accepted: October 8, 2014
- Accepted Manuscript published: October 9, 2014 (version 1)
- Accepted Manuscript updated: October 10, 2014 (version 2)
- Version of Record published: November 4, 2014 (version 3)
Copyright
© 2014, Levin et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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