Publication Date:
2014-09-13
Description:
The origin of chordates has been debated for more than a century, with one key issue being the emergence of the notochord. In vertebrates, the notochord develops by convergence and extension of the chordamesoderm, a population of midline cells of unique molecular identity. We identify a population of mesodermal cells in a developing invertebrate, the marine annelid Platynereis dumerilii, that converges and extends toward the midline and expresses a notochord-specific combination of genes. These cells differentiate into a longitudinal muscle, the axochord, that is positioned between central nervous system and axial blood vessel and secretes a strong collagenous extracellular matrix. Ancestral state reconstruction suggests that contractile mesodermal midline cells existed in bilaterian ancestors. We propose that these cells, via vacuolization and stiffening, gave rise to the chordate notochord.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Lauri, Antonella -- Brunet, Thibaut -- Handberg-Thorsager, Mette -- Fischer, Antje H L -- Simakov, Oleg -- Steinmetz, Patrick R H -- Tomer, Raju -- Keller, Philipp J -- Arendt, Detlev -- Howard Hughes Medical Institute/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2014 Sep 12;345(6202):1365-8. doi: 10.1126/science.1253396.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Developmental Biology Unit, European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), D-69117 Heidelberg. ; Developmental Biology Unit, European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), D-69117 Heidelberg. Janelia Farm Research Campus, 19700 Helix Drive, Ashburn, VA 20147, USA. ; Janelia Farm Research Campus, 19700 Helix Drive, Ashburn, VA 20147, USA. ; Developmental Biology Unit, European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), D-69117 Heidelberg. Centre for Organismal Studies, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany. detlev.arendt@embl.de.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25214631" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Abdominal Muscles/cytology/embryology
;
Animals
;
*Biological Evolution
;
Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental
;
Mesoderm/cytology/*embryology
;
Notochord/cytology/*embryology
;
Phylogeny
;
Polychaeta/*classification/*embryology/genetics
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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