Descripción del proyecto
Descubrir linajes desconocidos próximos a los animales para comprender su origen
Dilucidar los misterios de la evolución animal dará un salto cualitativo gracias al proyecto MISSINGRELATIVES, financiado por el Consejo Europeo de Investigación. En el proyecto se pretende esclarecer la aparición de los animales a partir de sus antepasados unicelulares. Estudios recientes sobre diversos parientes unicelulares de los animales han revelado que el antepasado unicelular poseía una mayor variedad de genes ligados a la pluricelularidad de lo que se creía hasta ahora. Sin embargo, sigue existiendo una brecha significativa entre los primeros linajes de animales y sus homólogos unicelulares, quizá debido a linajes intermedios aún no descubiertos. El equipo del proyecto empleará métodos de metacódigo de barras genético de cadena larga y el marcaje sin fijación. Al proporcionar una comprensión exhaustiva de la diversidad de los parientes de los animales, esta investigación resolverá cuestiones cruciales sobre los orígenes de los animales y beneficiará a los ecólogos.
Objetivo
How animals emerged from their unicellular ancestors remains a major evolutionary question. Work done on diverse unicellular relatives of animals demonstrated that the unicellular ancestor of animals had a larger repertoire of genes associated with multicellularity than previously thought. These include “animal-specific” genes such as protein tyrosine kinases, integrins and Brachyury. This suggests a latent genetic potential in place at the origin of animals and hints at a much more gradual transition in their emergence. However, a comparison of extant early-branching animals and their unicellular relatives still reveals an abrupt difference between protists and the body plans of extant animals. This gap could be due to intermediate lineages going extinct, or that descendants of key lineages have not been found yet. Recent DNA environmental surveys suggest the latter, revealing several novel kingdom-level lineages that branch close to animals and remain unknown.
We will not make progress in understanding the origin of animals until we have explored the real diversity of animals’ closest relatives and isolated the major lineages that remain uncharacterized. Indeed, some of the answers to animal origins that we can not currently address with our taxon sampling are likely hiding in hindsight in those unsampled lineages. Notably, a targeted survey of animal relatives has not been done. I propose to do this by exploiting recent developments in long-read metabarcoding. We will screen different environments and isolate the novel lineages using fixation-free labeling methods. We will culture them and get their genomes.
We will provide a complete picture of the diversity among animal relatives, which will also be relevant to ecologists. Notably, the novel lineages will allow us to address fundamental questions about the origin of animals that cannot be answered with the current taxon sampling, including the origin of embryogenesis and spatial cell differentiation.
Ámbito científico
Palabras clave
Programa(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Régimen de financiación
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsInstitución de acogida
28006 Madrid
España