Project description:Understanding how brains evolved is critical to determine the origin(s) of centralized nervous systems. Brains are patterned along their anteroposterior axis by stripes of gene expression that appear to be conserved, suggesting brains are homologous. However, the striped expression is also part of the deeply conserved anteroposterior axial program. An emerging hypothesis is that similarities in brain patterning are convergent, arising through the repeated co-option of axial programs. To resolve whether shared brain neurogenic programs likely reflect convergence or homology, we investigated the evolution of axial programs in neurogenesis. We show that the bilaterian anteroposterior program patterns the nerve net of the cnidarian Nematostella along the oral-aboral axis arguing that anteroposterior programs regionalized developing nervous systems in the cnidarian-bilaterian common ancestor prior to the emergence of brains. This finding rejects shared patterning as sufficient evidence to support brain homology and provides functional support for the plausibility that axial programs could be co-opted if nervous systems centralized in multiple lineages
Project description:Bilaterian animals display a wide variety of cell types, organized into defined anatomical structures and organ systems, which are mostly absent in pre-bilaterian animals. Xenacoelomorpha are an early branching bilaterian phylum displaying an apparently relatively simple anatomical organization that have greatly diverged from other Bilaterian clades. In this study, we use whole-body single-cell transcriptomics on the acoel Isodiametra pulchra to identify and characterize different cell types. Our analysis identifies the existence of at least 11 major cell-type categories in acoels all contributing to the main biological functions of the organism: metabolism, locomotion and movements, behavior, defense and development. Interestingly, while most cell clusters express core fate markers shared with other animal clades, we also describe a surprisingly large numbers of clade-specific marker genes, suggesting the emergence of clade-specific common molecular machineries functioning in distinct cell types. Together, these results provide novel insight into the evolution of bilaterian cell-types and open the door to a better understanding of the origins of the bilaterian body plan and their constitutive cell types.
Project description:The four neural stem cell lines, XN4, XN1, KN1, and CN4, were derived from EpiSCs under different Wnt signal inputs (Nakamura et al., to be submitted). Microarray analysis of the transcripts indicated that these cells have different anteroposterior regional characteristics of the embryonic CNS from the forebrain to the thoracic spinal cord. However, each cell line has a relatively broad anteroposterior regional coverage. For instance, the XN1 line expressed midbrain-characteristic genes and hindbrain-characteristic genes. Single-cell transcriptome analysis of the four cell lines was performed to confirm that the broad anteroposterior specificity is intrinsic to individual cells of the cell line rather than the cell lines are composite of separable subpopulations with narrower anteroposterior specificities.
Project description:Female fertility in mammals requires the iterative remodeling of the entire adult female reproductive tract across the menstrual/estrous cycle. Here we examine global transcriptional dynamics of the mouse oviduct along the anteroposterior axis and across the estrous cycle. Though we observed robust patterns of differential oviduct gene expression along the anteroposterior axis, we found surprisingly few changes in gene expression across the estrous cycle, in marked contrast to other mammals. We speculate that this is an evolutionarily derived state that may reflect the extremely rapid five-day mouse estrous cycle.
Project description:Bilaterian animals differ from other metazoans in their apparent bilateral symmetry and the development of a third germ layer. Both might have facilitated the evolution of the diverse and complex bilaterian body plans. The first cnidarian genome sequence revealed that despite their morphological simplicity, this sister group to all bilaterians shares an immense genomic complexity with vertebrates. This suggested that it might have been the complexity of gene regulation which increased during the evolution of bilaterians. We compared the gene regulatory landscape of cnidarians and bilaterians. To this end we generated the first genome-wide prediction of gene regulatory elements and profiled five epigenetic marks in a non-bilaterian animal, the cnidarian Nematostella vectensis. We found that the location of chromatin modifications relative to genes and distal enhancers is conserved among eumetazoans. Surprisingly, the genomic landscape of gene regulatory elements is highly similar between Nematostella and bilaterian model organisms. This suggests that complex regulation of developmental gene expression evolved in eumetazoans without a major increase in complexity in bilaterians. ChIP-seq of p300, RNA Pol2, and five histone modifications in Nematostella vectensis.
Project description:To understand the effects of the microbiome of Drosophila melanogaster on host gene expression, we compared the transcriptome of guts from conventionally reared flies to their axenically (germ-free)-reared counterparts. Our analysis used dissected intestines from 4-7 day-old adult females and included two wild-type fly lines, OregonR and CantonS, as well as an immune-deficient line, RelishE20. With one of the wild-type lines, CantonS, we also looked at the impact of microbiome on the transcriptional profile of dissected intestines from aged cohorts (35-40 day-old females) and young (4-7 day-old) non-gut tissues (all tissues remaining from samples dissected for the analysis of guts.
Project description:During early animal evolution, the emergence of axially-polarized segments was central to the diversification of complex bilaterian body plans. Nevertheless, precisely how and when segment polarity pathways arose remains obscure. Here we demonstrate the molecular basis for segment polarization in developing larvae of the pre-bilaterian sea anemone Nematostella vectensis. Utilizing spatial transcriptomics, we first constructed a 3-D gene expression atlas of developing larval segments. Capitalizing on accurate in silico predictions, we identified Lbx and Uncx, conserved homeodomain-containing genes that occupy opposing subsegmental domains under the control of both BMP signaling and the Hox-Gbx cascade. Functionally, Lbx mutagenesis eliminated all molecular evidence of segment polarization at larval stage and resulted in an aberrant mirror-symmetric pattern of retractor muscles in primary polyps. These results demonstrate the molecular basis for segment polarity in a pre-bilaterian animal, suggesting that polarized metameric structures were present in the Cnidaria-Bilateria common ancestor over 600 million years ago.
Project description:This SuperSeries is composed of the following subset Series:; GSE14515: Comparative transcriptomics analysis of Populus leaves under nitrogen limitation: clone 1979; GSE14893: Comparative transcriptomics analysis of Populus leaves under nitrogen limitation: clone 3200 Experiment Overall Design: Refer to individual Series
Project description:Bulk RNAseq from whole adult Drosophila melanogaster guts expressing either mCherry-RNAi (control) or RNAi against ChAT (Choline acteyltransferase) under control of a enteroendocrine-specific driver to assess the role of epithelial acetylcholine production in intestinal barrier function.