Molecular characterization of the sea lamprey retina illuminates the evolutionary origin of retinal cell types.

ABSTRACT: The lamprey, a primitive jawless vertebrate whose ancestors diverged from all other vertebrates over 500 million years ago, offers a unique window into the ancient formation of the retina. Using single-cell RNA-sequencing, we characterize retinal cell types in the lamprey and compare them to those in mouse, chicken, and zebrafish. We find six cell classes and 74 distinct cell types, many shared with other vertebrate species. The conservation of cell types indicates their emergence early in vertebrate evolution, highlighting primordial designs of retinal circuits for the rod pathway, ON-OFF discrimination, and direction selectivity. The diversification of amacrine and some ganglion cell types appears, however, to be distinct in the lamprey. We further infer genetic regulators in specifying

SUBMITTER: Wang J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11685597 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature