Morphological and dietary changes encoded in the genome of Beroe ovata, a ctenophore-eating ctenophore.

ABSTRACT: As the sister group to all other animals, ctenophores (comb jellies) are important for understanding the emergence and diversification of numerous animal traits. Efforts to explore the evolutionary processes that promoted diversification within Ctenophora are hindered by undersampling genomic diversity within this clade. To address this gap, we present the sequence, assembly and initial annotation of the genome of Beroe ovata. Beroe possess unique morphology, behavior, ecology and development. Unlike their generalist carnivorous kin, beroid ctenophores feed exclusively on other ctenophores. Accordingly, our analyses revealed a loss of chitinase, an enzyme critical for the digestion of most non-ctenophore prey, but superfluous for ctenophorivores. Broadly, our genomic analysis

SUBMITTER: Vargas AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11184263 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature