How larvae and life cycles evolve

Bernard M Degnan; Sandie M Degnan

doi:10.1016/j.tig.2023.03.008

How larvae and life cycles evolve

Trends Genet. 2023 Jul;39(7):528-530. doi: 10.1016/j.tig.2023.03.008. Epub 2023 Apr 5.

Authors

Bernard M Degnan¹, Sandie M Degnan²

Affiliations

¹ School of Biological Sciences and Centre for Marine Science, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia. Electronic address: b.degnan@uq.edu.au.
² School of Biological Sciences and Centre for Marine Science, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia.

PMID: 37024335
DOI: 10.1016/j.tig.2023.03.008

Abstract

Marine larvae have factored heavily in pursuits to understand the origin and evolution of animal life cycles. Recent comparisons of gene expression and chromatin state in different species of sea urchin and annelid show how evolutionary changes in embryonic gene regulation can lead to markedly different larval forms.

Keywords: ATAC-Seq; annelid; gene regulatory network; larvae; pelagobenthic life cycle; sea urchin.

MeSH terms

Animals
Larva / genetics
Life Cycle Stages* / genetics
Sea Urchins* / genetics