A comparative genomics approach to the origin of multicellular animals

This project aims to clarify the most hotly debated evolutionary transition in life’s history, the origin of multicellular animals. The cornerstones of multicellularity are epithelial integrity and cell-cell communication. To spot the main genetic changes underlying them, we will follow a double approach: More specifically, we will:

1) carry out functional genomics to elucidate the “ancestral function” of some genes required for multicellularity in metazoans.

We have recently identified some genes which are key to animal development in two single-celled animal relatives, Capsaspora owczarzaki and Sphaeroforma arctica. Our goal is to elucidate what are those genes (which are crucial to multicellularity) doing in those single-celled organisms in order to better understand their posterior co-adaptation in multicellular animals.



2) carry out comparative genomic analyses among extant animals and their unicellular protist relatives.

We are part of UNICORN (UNICellular Opisthokonts Research iNitiative): an international and multi-taxon genome project recently funded by NHGRI (National Institute for Human Genome Research), which aims to gain insights into how multicellularity first evolved in both animals and fungi. UNICORN will obtain the genome sequence from several of the most closest relatives of both multicellular animals and fungi, including Capsaspora owczarzaki and Sphaeroforma arctica (see http://www.genome.gov/10002154). Our group will be responsible for providing high quality DNA from those organisms, and will be actively involved (in collaboration with the rest of co-applicants and with scientists at the Broad Institute) in the analysis and annotation.


Staff
Iñaki Ruiz-Trillo
Arnau Sebé
Guifré Torruella
Alex de Mendoza
Alex Pérez
Hiroshi Suga
Romain Derelle


Collaborators
Marta Riutort (Dept. Genètica, U.B.)
Andrew J. Roger (Dalhousie University, Canada)
Nicole King (UC Berkeley, USA)
Franz Lang (Universite Montreal, Canada)