瑞士联邦理工学院Omaya Dudin与合作者揭示了近亲动物的多细胞发育程序。2024年11月6日出版的《自然》发表了这项成果。

据介绍，所有动物都是通过一系列精准协调的过程，从单细胞胚胎发育为复杂的多细胞生物体。尽管不同动物的早期胚胎发生具有显著的一致性，但这一过程是如何以及何时开始出现的，以及其进化起源仍然未知。

通过结合时间分辨成像和转录组分析，研究人员发现Chromosphaera perkinsii（大约10亿年前从鱼鳞纲动物中分化出来）的单细胞发生对称性破坏，并通过裂殖分裂发育成，具有不同共存细胞类型的多细胞群体。

研究人员对C. perkinsii的自主和复发细胞发育程序的研究结果表明，这种多细胞发育要么比以前认为的要早得多，要么是在鱼鳞纲动物中趋同进化而来。

附：英文原文

Title: A multicellular developmental program in a close animal relative

Author: Olivetta, Marine, Bhickta, Chandni, Chiaruttini, Nicolas, Burns, John, Dudin, Omaya

Issue&Volume: 2024-11-06

Abstract: All animals develop from a single-celled zygote into a complex multicellular organism through a series of precisely orchestrated processes1,2. Despite the remarkable conservation of early embryogenesis across animals, the evolutionary origins of how and when this process first emerged remain elusive. Here, by combining time-resolved imaging and transcriptomic profiling, we show that single cells of the ichthyosporean Chromosphaera perkinsii—a close relative that diverged from animals about 1 billion years ago3,4—undergo symmetry breaking and develop through cleavage divisions to produce a prolonged multicellular colony with distinct co-existing cell types. Our findings about the autonomous and palintomic developmental program of C. perkinsii hint that such multicellular development either is much older than previously thought or evolved convergently in ichthyosporeans.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08115-3

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08115-3