ReviewOpen biology2021
The origin of animals: an ancestral reconstruction of the unicellular-to-multicellular transition.
Review in Open biology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 63 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
63 citing papers in PubMed, 164 citations in OpenAlex.
- Article
- Review
- Article
- Reconstructing the evolutionary origin of β-catenin recognition in the Wnt destruction complex.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Endocytosed lipids induce cell aggregation via filopodia retraction in a close relative of animals.EMBO reports · 2026Article
- The pathoanatomy of cancer: order in paradox.EBioMedicine · 2026Review
- Review
- A smartphone analogy to explore the origin of animals.The EMBO journal · 2026Review
- Article
- EEPD1 evolved a unique DNA clamping dimer protecting reversed replication forks.Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
- Outsourcing of energetically costly amino acids at the origin of animals.Nature communications · 2026Article
- The Evolution of Same-sex Sexual Behavior: Using Old Theory to Answer New Questions.Integrative and comparative biology · 2026Review
- The evolutionary origins of synaptic proteins and their changing roles in different organisms across evolution.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2026Review
- G-protein-coupled receptor diversity and evolution in the closest living relatives of metazoa.eLife · 2025Article
- Exploring the roles of conserved context-dependent cis-regulatory elements (cdCREs) in multicellularity, human health and disease.The FEBS journal · 2025Review
- The evolutionary foundations of transcriptional regulation in animals.Nature reviews. Genetics · 2025Review
- EdgeHOG: a method for fine-grained ancestral gene order inference at large scale.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Equations describing semi-confluent cell growth (II) colony formation on a flat surface.European biophysics journal : EBJ · 2025Article
- A close unicellular animal relative and predator of schistosomes exhibits chemokinesis in response to proteins and peptides from its prey.PLoS pathogens · 2025Article
- β-Catenin localization in the ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi suggests an ancestral role in cell adhesion and nuclear function.Developmental dynamics : an official publication of the American Association of Anatomists · 2025Article
3 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
How animals evolved from a single-celled ancestor, transitioning from a unicellular lifestyle to a coordinated multicellular entity, remains a fascinating question. Key events in this transition involved the emergence of processes related to cell adhesion, cell-cell communication and gene regulation. To understand how these capacities evolved, we need to reconstruct the features of both the last common multicellular ancestor of animals and the last unicellular ancestor of animals. In this review, we summarize recent advances in the characterization of these ancestors, inferred by comparative genomic analyses between the earliest branching animals and those radiating later, and between animals and their closest unicellular relatives. We also provide an updated hypothesis regarding the transition to animal multicellularity, which was likely gradual and involved the use of gene regulatory mechanisms in the emergence of early developmental and morphogenetic plans. Finally, we discuss some new avenues of research that will complement these studies in the coming years.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.