The genome of the colonial hydroid <i>Hydractinia</i> reveals that their stem cells use a toolkit of evolutionarily shared genes with all animals.

ABSTRACT: Hydractinia is a colonial marine hydroid that shows remarkable biological properties, including the capacity to regenerate its entire body throughout its lifetime, a process made possible by its adult migratory stem cells, known as i-cells. Here, we provide an in-depth characterization of the genomic structure and gene content of two Hydractinia species, Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus and Hydractinia echinata, placing them in a comparative evolutionary framework with other cnidarian genomes. We also generated and annotated a single-cell transcriptomic atlas for adult male H. symbiolongicarpus and identified cell-type markers for all major cell types, including key i-cell markers. Orthology analyses based on the markers revealed that Hydractinia's i-

SUBMITTER: Schnitzler CE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11067881 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature