A receptor tyrosine kinase from choanoflagellates: molecular insights into early animal evolution.

ABSTRACT: The evolution of the Metazoa from protozoans is one of the major milestones in life's history. The genetic and developmental events involved in this evolutionary transition are unknown but may have involved the evolution of genes required for signaling and gene regulation in metazoans. The genome of animal ancestors may be reconstructed by identification of animal genes that are shared with related eukaryotes, particularly those that share a more recent ancestry and cell biology with animals. The choanoflagellates have long been suspected to be closer relatives of animals than are fungi, the closest outgroup of animals for which comparative genomic information is available. Phylogenetic analyses of choanoflagellate and animal relationships based on small subunit rDNA sequence, however, hav

SUBMITTER: King N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC64978 | biostudies-literature | 2001 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature