ArticleNature2015
Spatiotemporal transcriptomics reveals the evolutionary history of the endoderm germ layer.
Article in Nature, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 109 papers.
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109 citing papers in PubMed, 201 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Conserved Gene Expression Plasticity in Development Is More Pervasive Than Expression Divergence Between Species of Caenorhabditis Nematodes.Evolution & development · 2025Article
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- Behavioral age-detection in individuals reconstructs minute-scale developmental transcriptomics.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- A simple model reveals why complex evolutionary innovations follow predictable paths.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- The SPN-4 Rbfox RNA-binding protein selects maternal mRNAs for CCR4-NOT-dependent clearance in earlybioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- An updated compendium of Caenorhabditis elegans RNA-binding proteins and their regulation.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2025Article
- Establishing single cell RNA transcriptomics: a brief guide.Frontiers in zoology · 2025Review
- Landscape and regulation of mRNA translation in the early C. elegans embryo.Cell reports · 2025Article
- Lineage-resolved analysis of embryonic gene expression evolution inScience (New York, N.Y.) · 2025Article
- Landscape and regulation of mRNA translation in the earlybioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Detecting gene expression in Caenorhabditis elegans.Genetics · 2025Review
- A new class of natural anthelmintics targeting lipid metabolism.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Mapping lineage-traced cells across time points with moslin.Genome biology · 2024Article
- Article
49 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
The concept of germ layers has been one of the foremost organizing principles in developmental biology, classification, systematics and evolution for 150 years (refs 1 - 3). Of the three germ layers, the mesoderm is found in bilaterian animals but is absent in species in the phyla Cnidaria and Ctenophora, which has been taken as evidence that the mesoderm was the final germ layer to evolve. The origin of the ectoderm and endoderm germ layers, however, remains unclear, with models supporting the antecedence of each as well as a simultaneous origin. Here we determine the temporal and spatial components of gene expression spanning embryonic development for all Caenorhabditis elegans genes and use it to determine the evolutionary ages of the germ layers. The gene expression program of the mesoderm is induced after those of the ectoderm and endoderm, thus making it the last germ layer both to evolve and to develop. Strikingly, the C. elegans endoderm and ectoderm expression programs do not co-induce; rather the endoderm activates earlier, and this is also observed in the expression of endoderm orthologues during the embryology of the frog Xenopus tropicalis, the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis and the sponge Amphimedon queenslandica. Querying the phylogenetic ages of specifically expressed genes reveals that the endoderm comprises older genes. Taken together, we propose that the endoderm program dates back to the origin of multicellularity, whereas the ectoderm originated as a secondary germ layer freed from ancestral feeding functions.
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