ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2002
A phylogenetic analysis of myosin heavy chain type II sequences corroborates that Acoela and Nemertodermatida are basal bilaterians.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2002. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 46 papers.
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Who cites it
46 citing papers in PubMed, 248 citations in OpenAlex.
- Patterns of Conservation and Loss of Hox Genes in Xenacoelomorph Lineage Since Divergence From Last Common Bilaterian Ancestor.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Genomics Sheds New Light on the Ancestral Bilaterian Opsin Repertoire and Suggests Rhabdomeric Phototransduction in Xenacoelomorpha.Genome biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Acoelomorph flatworm monophyly is a long-branch attraction artefact obscuring a clade of Acoela and Xenoturbellida.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- A wound-induced differentiation trajectory for neurons.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Acoel single-cell atlas reveals expression dynamics and heterogeneity of adult pluripotent stem cells.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Transgenesis in the acoel worm Hofstenia miamia.Developmental cell · 2021Article
- Embryonic development in the acoel Hofstenia miamia.Development (Cambridge, England) · 2021Article
- An invertebrate smooth muscle with striated muscle myosin filaments.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2015Article
- The molecular symplesiomorphies shared by the stem groups of metazoan evolution: can sites as few as 1% have a significant impact on recognizing the phylogenetic position of myzostomida?Journal of molecular evolution · 2014Article
- Development and juvenile anatomy of the nemertodermatid Meara stichopi (Bock) Westblad 1949 (Acoelomorpha).Frontiers in zoology · 2014Article
- The chimerical and multifaceted marine acoel Symsagittifera roscoffensis: from photosymbiosis to brain regeneration.Frontiers in microbiology · 2014Review
- Article
- An evolutionary analysis of flightin reveals a conserved motif unique and widespread in Pancrustacea.Journal of molecular evolution · 2014Article
- New phylogenomic data support the monophyly of Lophophorata and an Ectoproct-Phoronid clade and indicate that Polyzoa and Kryptrochozoa are caused by systematic bias.BMC evolutionary biology · 2013Article
- Evolution of Hox gene clusters in deuterostomes.BMC developmental biology · 2013Review
- TPMS: a set of utilities for querying collections of gene trees.BMC bioinformatics · 2013Article
- The impact of paralogy on phylogenomic studies - a case study on annelid relationships.PloS one · 2013Article
- Patterns of diversity in soft-bodied meiofauna: dispersal ability and body size matter.PloS one · 2012Article
- The complete mitochondrial genome of Flustra foliacea (Ectoprocta, Cheilostomata) - compositional bias affects phylogenetic analyses of lophotrochozoan relationships.BMC genomics · 2011Article
- The mysterious evolutionary origin for the GNE gene and the root of bilateria.Molecular biology and evolution · 2011Article
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Bilateria are currently subdivided into three superclades: Deuterostomia, Ecdysozoa, and Lophotrochozoa. Within this new taxonomic frame, acoelomate Platyhelminthes, for a long time held to be basal bilaterians, are now considered spiralian lophotrochozoans. However, recent 18S rDNA [small subunit (SSU)] analyses have shown Platyhelminthes to be polyphyletic with two of its orders, the Acoela and the Nemertodermatida, as the earliest extant bilaterians. To corroborate such position and avoid the criticisms of saturation and long-branch effects thrown on the SSU molecule, we have searched for independent molecular data bearing good phylogenetic information at deep evolutionary nodes. Here we report a phylogenetic analysis of DNA sequences from the myosin heavy chain type II (myosin II) gene from a large set of metazoans, including acoels and nemertodermatids. Our study demonstrates, both for the myosin II data set alone and for a combined SSU + myosin II data set, that Platyhelminthes are polyphyletic and that acoels and nemertodermatids are the extant earliest bilaterians. Hence, the common bilaterian ancestor was not, as currently held, large and complex but small, simple, and likely with direct development. This scenario has far-reaching implications for understanding the evolution of major body plans and for perceptions of the Cambrian evolutionary explosion.
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