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.
Functional genomics reveal complex genome regulation during the coenocytic development of the ichthyosporean Creolimax fragrantissima, a protist closely related to animals.
Two new unicellular organisms reveal that coordinated contractions of groups of cells using actomyosin predated animal multicellularity during evolution.
The transition to the aggregative stage of Capsaspora owczarzaki, a close unicellular relative to Metazoa, is associated with significant upregulation of orthologs of genes that are important for multicellularity in metazoans.
The colony-forming choanoflagellate Salpingoeca rosetta is capable of moving towards oxygen using logarithmic sensing of oxygen concentrations and a navigation strategy that involves random movements.
Cellularization in Sphaeroforma arctica generates a self-organized structure that morphologically resembles an epithelium, and is associated with tightly regulated expression of cell adhesion pathways.
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.
