ArticleNature ecology & evolution2020
Evolutionary transcriptomics of metazoan biphasic life cycle supports a single intercalation origin of metazoan larvae.
Article in Nature ecology & evolution, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 29 papers.
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29 citing papers in PubMed, 79 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Evolutionary innovation within conserved gene regulatory networks underlying biomineralized skeletons in Bilateria.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Toward mechanisms underlying the developmental hourglass: evolvability and phylotypic conservation.EvoDevo · 2025Review
- A newly evolved small secretory peptide enhances mechanical properties of spider silk.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Epigenetic regulation and maternal-to-zygotic transition in dwarf surf clam (Zoological research · 2025Article
- The chromosome-level genome assembly and annotation of the silver-lipped pearl oyster, Pinctada maxima.Scientific data · 2025Article
- Core histone families of mollusca: systematic identification, evolutionary insights, and functional analysis.BMC genomics · 2025Article
- Widespread presence of bone marrow-like hematopoietic stem cell niche in invertebrate skeletons.Science advances · 2025Article
- Marine evo-devo: New frontiers from Lophotrochozoa.Innovation (Cambridge (Mass.)) · 2025Review
- Systematic screening and dynamic profiling of germline regulatory pathways and spermatogonial surface markers in a bivalve mollusc.Computational and structural biotechnology journal · 2025Article
- 'Conga lines' of Ediacaran fronds: insights into the reproductive biology of early metazoans.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- Identification of the principal neuropeptide MIP and its action pathway in larval settlement of the echiuran worm Urechis unicinctus.BMC genomics · 2024Article
- Neurons with larval synaptic targets pioneer the later nervous system in the annelidFrontiers in neuroscience · 2024Article
- Single-cell transcriptomics refuels the exploration of spiralian biology.Briefings in functional genomics · 2023Review
- Single-cell atlases of two lophotrochozoan larvae highlight their complex evolutionary histories.Science advances · 2023Article
- Morphological Observation and Transcriptome Analysis of Ciliogenesis inInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2023Article
- Identification and validation of the reference genes in the echiuran worm Urechis unicinctus based on transcriptome data.BMC genomics · 2023Article
- Article
- EDomics: a comprehensive and comparative multi-omics database for animal evo-devo.Nucleic acids research · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
26 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The transient larva-bearing biphasic life cycle is the hallmark of many metazoan phyla, but how metazoan larvae originated remains a major enigma in animal evolution. There are two hypotheses for larval origin. The 'larva-first' hypothesis suggests that the first metazoans were similar to extant larvae, with later evolution of the adult-added biphasic life cycle; the 'adult-first' hypothesis suggests that the first metazoans were adult forms, with the biphasic life cycle arising later via larval intercalation. Here, we investigate the evolutionary origin of primary larvae by conducting ontogenetic transcriptome profiling for Mollusca-the largest marine phylum characterized by a trochophore larval stage and highly variable adult forms. We reveal that trochophore larvae exhibit rapid transcriptome evolution with extraordinary incorporation of novel genes (potentially contributing to adult shell evolution), and that cell signalling/communication genes (for example, caveolin and innexin) are probably crucial for larval evolution. Transcriptome age analysis of eight metazoan species reveals the wide presence of young larval transcriptomes in both trochozoans and other major metazoan lineages, therefore arguing against the prevailing larva-first hypothesis. Our findings support an adult-first evolutionary scenario with a single metazoan larval intercalation, and suggest that the first appearance of proto-larva probably occurred after the divergence of direct-developing Ctenophora from a metazoan ancestor.
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