Project description
Evolutionary origins and diversification of animal cell types
Animals develop from a single cell ancestor through processes that involve transition to multicellularity. Understanding how different cell types originate and specialise over time is essential for explaining animal evolution. This diversification relies on changes in genetic and regulatory programmes. The ERC-funded CELL-SYSTEMATICS project will use Cnidaria, such as sea anemones, as a model system to study how cell types evolve. By integrating single cell analysis, functional genomics and advanced computational tools, the project will delineate how genes shape cell identity and reveal how new cell types arise. Comparative analysis of cells across species will help build a new framework for understanding the origin and diversification of animal cell types.
Objective
Cell types are the basic constituents of animal multicellularity, with each type defined by a gene regulatory program that specifies cell function and structure. Thus, understanding cell type diversity is key to explaining animal adaptation and evolution. However, despite recent advances in the molecular characterization of cell types, the phylogenetic relationships between animal cell types remain obscuremainly because we do not understand how the different elements of a cell type identity program (e.g. transcription factors and regulatory sequences) change over time and how these changes translate into cellular novelties.
This project will bridge the gap between cell type micro- and macroevolution, focusing on Cnidaria as a model to study cell type evolutionary processes. We will measure and compare cell identity characters across divergent timescales: from intraspecies variation between sea anemone populations, to cross-species comparisons within Cnidaria, to cross-phyla cell phylogenies. By combining single-cell and functional genomics experiments with advanced computational methods, we will: (i) build whole-organism genotypephenotype maps at cellular resolution, to explain the genetic basis of cell type evolution; (ii) model the evolutionary processes underlying the diversification, novelty, and functional adaptation of cell types across the cnidarian phylum; and (iii) study the evolutionary conservation and divergence rates of cell type regulatory characters to resolve the phylogenetic relationships between animal cell types (e.g. neurons, gland, epidermal, and sensory cells).
The expected results will offer a multi-level, quantitative, and phylogenetic perspective on animal cell types, allowing us to test long-standing hypotheses about cell type evolution. Our novel comparative framework will lay the foundations of cell systematics and provide transformative insights into a fundamental question in biology: how do cell types originate and diversify?
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics
- natural sciences biological sciences biological morphology comparative morphology
- natural sciences biological sciences zoology invertebrate zoology
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) ERC-2024-COG
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08003 Barcelona
Spain
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