Molecular profiling of annelid myocytes reveals that the last common protostome-deuterostome ancestor already possessed a dual musculature, with visceral smooth muscles ensuring digestion and somatic striated muscles ensuring locomotion.
Protein coding genes strongly support a sister group relationship between Placozoa and Cnidaria to the exclusion of Bilateria, contradicting previous phylogenies, which have likely been misled by pervasive compositional heterogeneity.
The foundations of genomic complexity in multicellular animals have deep roots in their unicellular prehistory, both in terms of innovations in gene content, as well as the evolutionary dynamics of genome architecture.
The genomes of animal progenitors evolved as mosaics of old, new, rearranged, and repurposed protein domains, genes and pathways and paved the way for the origin and evolution of animals.
The animal phylogeny of glutamate receptors indicates that vertebrate types do not account for all receptor classes originated during evolution, neither are they the pinnacle of a linear evolutive process.
Connectomic reconstruction combined with activity imaging uncovered a rhythmically active neuronal circuit for the coordination of ciliary activity across the whole body of a marine larva.
Genomic evidence suggests that L-gulonolactone oxidase-the terminal enzyme in vitamin C synthesis, which has been repeatedly lost throughout animal evolution-was lost in plants and other photosynthetic eukaryotes following plastid acquisition.
The first genomic view of beetle luciferase evolution indicates evolutionary independence of luciferase between fireflies and click-beetles, and provide valuable datasets which will accelerate the discovery of new biotechnological tools.
