A multicellular developmental program in a close animal relative

Marine Olivetta, Chandni Bhickta, Nicolas Chiaruttini, John Burns () and Omaya Dudin ()
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Marine Olivetta: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)
Chandni Bhickta: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)
Nicolas Chiaruttini: Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
John Burns: Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences
Omaya Dudin: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)

Nature, 2024, vol. 635, issue 8038, 382-389

Abstract: Abstract All animals develop from a single-celled zygote into a complex multicellular organism through a series of precisely orchestrated processes1,2. Despite the remarkable conservation of early embryogenesis across animals, the evolutionary origins of how and when this process first emerged remain elusive. Here, by combining time-resolved imaging and transcriptomic profiling, we show that single cells of the ichthyosporean Chromosphaera perkinsii—a close relative that diverged from animals about 1 billion years ago3,4—undergo symmetry breaking and develop through cleavage divisions to produce a prolonged multicellular colony with distinct co-existing cell types. Our findings about the autonomous and palintomic developmental program of C. perkinsii hint that such multicellular development either is much older than previously thought or evolved convergently in ichthyosporeans.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08115-3

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