Development of ichthyosporeans sheds light on the origin of metazoan multicellularity.

ABSTRACT: To understand the mechanisms involved in the transition from protists to multicellular animals (metazoans), studying unicellular relatives of metazoans is as important as studying metazoans themselves. However, investigations remain poor on the closest unicellular (or colonial) relatives of Metazoa, i.e., choanoflagellates, filastereans and ichthyosporeans. Molecular-level analyses on these protists have been severely limited by the lack of transgenesis tools. Their genomes, however, contain several key genes encoding proteins important for metazoan development and multicellularity, including those involved in cell-cell communication, cell proliferation, cell differentiation, and tissue growth control. Tools to analyze their functions in a molecular level are awaited. Here we report techni

SUBMITTER: Suga H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4342548 | biostudies-literature | 2013 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature