ArticleScience advances2025
An ancient apical patterning system sets the position of the forebrain in chordates.
Article in Science advances, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 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
9 citing papers in PubMed.
- A 3D amphioxus brain atlas illuminates the blueprint of the ancestral chordate brain and highlights unique vertebrate innovations.Science advances · 2026Article
- Evolutionary dynamics of FoxQ2 transcription factors across metazoans reveals three ancient paralogs.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Non-visual photoreceptive brain specification in sea urchin larvae.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Single-nucleus profiling highlights the all-brain echinoderm nervous system.Science advances · 2025Article
- An Integrated Canonical and Non-Canonical Wnt Signaling Network Controls Early Anterior-Posterior Axis Formation in Sea Urchin Embryos.Journal of developmental biology · 2025Review
- A pre-vertebrate endodermal origin of calcitonin-producing neuroendocrine cells.Development (Cambridge, England) · 2024Article
- A feather star is born: embryonic development and nervous system organization in the crinoidOpen biology · 2024Article
- Article
- Gene Regulatory Network that Shaped the Evolution of Larval Apical Organ in Cnidaria.Molecular biology and evolution · 2024Article
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.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The evolutionary origin of the vertebrate brain remains a major subject of debate, as its development from a dorsal tubular neuroepithelium is unique to chordates. To shed light on the evolutionary emergence of the vertebrate brain, we compared anterior neuroectoderm development across deuterostome species, using available single-cell datasets from sea urchin, amphioxus, and zebrafish embryos. We identified a conserved gene co-expression module, comparable to the anterior gene regulatory network (aGRN) controlling apical organ development in ambulacrarians, and spatially mapped it by multiplexed in situ hybridization to the developing retina and hypothalamus of chordates. Using functional approaches, we show Wnt signaling regulating this co-expression module in amphioxus, like the aGRN in echinoderms, and that its overactivation suppresses forebrain identity. This suggests a previously undescribed role for Wnt signaling in amphioxus in determining the position of the forebrain. We propose this Wnt-regulated gene co-expression module as a possible mechanism by which the brain set antero-dorsally early in chordate evolution.
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.