Cardiopharyngeal deconstruction and ancestral tunicate sessility

Alfonso Ferrández-Roldán, Marc Fabregà-Torrus, Gaspar Sánchez-Serna, Enya Duran-Bello, Martí Joaquín-Lluís, Paula Bujosa, Marcos Plana-Carmona, Jordi Garcia-Fernàndez, Ricard Albalat and Cristian Cañestro ()
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Alfonso Ferrández-Roldán: Universitat de Barcelona
Marc Fabregà-Torrus: Universitat de Barcelona
Gaspar Sánchez-Serna: Universitat de Barcelona
Enya Duran-Bello: Universitat de Barcelona
Martí Joaquín-Lluís: Universitat de Barcelona
Paula Bujosa: Universitat de Barcelona
Marcos Plana-Carmona: Universitat de Barcelona
Jordi Garcia-Fernàndez: Universitat de Barcelona
Ricard Albalat: Universitat de Barcelona
Cristian Cañestro: Universitat de Barcelona

Nature, 2021, vol. 599, issue 7885, 431-435

Abstract: Abstract A central question in chordate evolution is the origin of sessility in adult ascidians, and whether the appendicularian complete free-living style represents a primitive or derived condition among tunicates1. According to the ‘a new heart for a new head’ hypothesis, the evolution of the cardiopharyngeal gene regulatory network appears as a pivotal aspect to understand the evolution of the lifestyles of chordates2–4. Here we show that appendicularians experienced massive ancestral losses of cardiopharyngeal genes and subfunctions, leading to the ‘deconstruction’ of two ancestral modules of the tunicate cardiopharyngeal gene regulatory network. In ascidians, these modules are related to early and late multipotency, which is involved in lineage cell-fate determination towards the first and second heart fields and siphon muscles. Our work shows that the deconstruction of the cardiopharyngeal gene regulatory network involved the regressive loss of the siphon muscle, supporting an evolutionary scenario in which ancestral tunicates had a sessile ascidian-like adult lifestyle. In agreement with this scenario, our findings also suggest that this deconstruction contributed to the acceleration of cardiogenesis and the redesign of the heart into an open-wide laminar structure in appendicularians as evolutionary adaptations during their transition to a complete pelagic free-living style upon the innovation of the food-filtering house5.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-04041-w

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