Unexpected repertoire of metazoan transcription factors in the unicellular holozoan Capsaspora owczarzaki.

ABSTRACT: How animals (metazoans) originated from their single-celled ancestors remains a major question in biology. As transcriptional regulation is crucial to animal development, deciphering the early evolution of associated transcription factors (TFs) is critical to understanding metazoan origins. In this study, we uncovered the repertoire of 17 metazoan TFs in the amoeboid holozoan Capsaspora owczarzaki, a representative of a unicellular lineage that is closely related to choanoflagellates and metazoans. Phylogenetic and comparative genomic analyses with the broadest possible taxonomic sampling allowed us to formulate new hypotheses regarding the origin and evolution of developmental metazoan TFs. We show that the complexity of the TF repertoire in C. owczarzaki is strikingly high, pushing back

SUBMITTER: Sebe-Pedros A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4342549 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature