ArticleBMC biology2018
A phylogenomic framework and timescale for comparative studies of tunicates.
Article in BMC biology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 102 papers.
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102 citing papers in PubMed, 233 citations in OpenAlex.
- Lifelong Invertebrate Chordate Central Nervous System Regeneration is Driven by a Migrating Pool of Conserved Neural Stem Cells program.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Closed Systems for Long-Term Propagation of the Marine TunicateLife (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Unique Tunicate Traits Possibly Encoded by Horizontally Transferred Genes.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Genomic Distortion of Jawed Vertebrate Phylogeny.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Divergent 3D genome architecture of male germ cells across vertebrates.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Insights into unique anatomical structures of the ascidian Halocynthia papillosa obtained by multimodal imaging.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Review
- The Road so Far: Tracing the Molecular Evolution of Hexokinase Family in Metazoa.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Comparative embryogenesis of two salp species reveals rogue development and evolutionary divergence from sessile tunicates.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Thaliacean tunicates, vertebrate sisters regained lifelong mobility.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Identification of protein precursor for thyroid hormone synthesis in basal chordate ascidian Styela clava.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Tunicates have a complex, highly dynamic TNF superfamily.PloS one · 2026Article
- Divergence of immune cell types in chordate blood.Current biology : CB · 2025Article
- Immune cell type divergence in a basal chordate.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Electrical Stimulation Rejuvenates Tunicates: Altered Stem Cell and Immune Activity.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Chromosome-level genome assembly and single-cell analysis unveil molecular mechanisms of arm regeneration in the ophiuroid Ophiura sarsii vadicola.Genome biology · 2025Article
- Does metabolic rate influence genome-wide amino acid composition in the course of animal evolution?Evolution letters · 2025Article
- Less, but More: New Insights From Appendicularians on Chordate Fgf Evolution and the Divergence of Tunicate Lifestyles.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- First chromosome-level genome assembly of the colonial chordate model Botryllus schlosseri (Tunicata).GigaScience · 2025Article
- Speed vs completeness: a comparative study of solitary and colonial tunicate embryogenesis.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2025Article
42 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 3 institutions in 5 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundTunicates are the closest relatives of vertebrates and are widely used as models to study the evolutionary developmental biology of chordates. Their phylogeny, however, remains poorly understood, and to date, only the 18S rRNA nuclear gene and mitogenomes have been used to delineate the major groups of tunicates. To resolve their evolutionary relationships and provide a first estimate of their divergence times, we used a transcriptomic approach to build a phylogenomic dataset including all major tunicate lineages, consisting of 258 evolutionarily conserved orthologous genes from representative species.
resultsPhylogenetic analyses using site-heterogeneous CAT mixture models of amino acid sequence evolution resulted in a strongly supported tree topology resolving the relationships among four major tunicate clades: (1) Appendicularia, (2) Thaliacea + Phlebobranchia + Aplousobranchia, (3) Molgulidae, and (4) Styelidae + Pyuridae. Notably, the morphologically derived Thaliacea are confirmed as the sister group of the clade uniting Phlebobranchia + Aplousobranchia within which the precise position of the model ascidian genus Ciona remains uncertain. Relaxed molecular clock analyses accommodating the accelerated evolutionary rate of tunicates reveal ancient diversification (~ 450-350 million years ago) among the major groups and allow one to compare their evolutionary age with respect to the major vertebrate model lineages.
conclusionsOur study represents the most comprehensive phylogenomic dataset for the main tunicate lineages. It offers a reference phylogenetic framework and first tentative timescale for tunicates, allowing a direct comparison with vertebrate model species in comparative genomics and evolutionary developmental biology studies.
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