Sea Anemone Genome Reveals Ancestral Eumetazoan Gene Repertoire and Genomic Organization

作者：Nicholas H. Putnam, Mansi Srivastava, Uffe Hellsten, Bill Dirks, Jarrod Chapman, Asaf Salamov, Astrid Terry, Harris Shapiro, Erika Lindquist, Vladimir V. Kapitonov, Jerzy Jurka, Grigory Genikhovich, Igor V. Grigoriev, Susan Lucas, Robert E. Steele, John R. Finnerty, Ulrich Technau, Mark Q. Martindale, Daniel S. Rokhsar · 发表于：Science · 年份：2007 · DOI：10.1126/science.1139158 · 被引用次数：1616 · 研究领域：Marine Ecology and Invasive Species、Parasite Biology and Host Interactions、Marine Invertebrate Physiology and Ecology

Sea anemones are seemingly primitive animals that, along with corals, jellyfish, and hydras, constitute the oldest eumetazoan phylum, the Cnidaria. Here, we report a comparative analysis of the draft genome of an emerging cnidarian model, the starlet sea anemone Nematostella vectensis. The sea anemone genome is complex, with a gene repertoire, exon-intron structure, and large-scale gene linkage more similar to vertebrates than to flies or nematodes, implying that the genome of the eumetazoan ancestor was similarly complex. Nearly one-fifth of the inferred genes of the ancestor are eumetazoan novelties, which are enriched for animal functions like cell signaling, adhesion, and synaptic transmission. Analysis of diverse pathways suggests that these gene "inventions" along the lineage leading to animals were likely already well integrated with preexisting eukaryotic genes in the eumetazoan progenitor.