ArticleNature ecology & evolution2025
Origin and stepwise evolution of vertebrate lungs.
Article in Nature ecology & evolution, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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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.
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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.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Genome-wide meta-analysis across East Asian and European populations provides insights into the molecular basis of lung cancer.Genome medicine · 2026Pooled it
- Abalone genomics reveals an ancient asymmetry axis and the multifunctionality of the mantle.Science advances · 2026Article
- Systematic benchmarking and optimal strategy selection of cross-species integration methods.Briefings in bioinformatics · 2026Article
- Article
- Pulmonary development in Squamata: Insights from embryonic studies using micro-CT.Developmental dynamics : an official publication of the American Association of Anatomists · 2026Article
- Broiler Ascites Syndrome as a Potential Spontaneous Animal Model for Human Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension: A Narrative Review.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- The molecular evolution of vertebrate organs.Nature ecology & evolution · 2026Review
- Visual pigments of basal lineages of bony fishes support independent ecological shifts from a shallow marine to a freshwater niche.Evolution letters · 2026Article
- Chromosome-level genome assembly of masu salmon (Oncorhynchus masou masou).Scientific data · 2026Article
- The 3D Genome Browser 2.0: an enhanced online platform for visualizing and analyzing 3D genome architecture.Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
- scGeneBank: cross-species screening of functional gene sets at single-cell resolution.Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
19 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Lungs are essential respiratory organs in terrestrial vertebrates, present in most bony fishes but absent in cartilaginous fishes, making them an ideal model for studying organ evolution. Here we analysed single-cell RNA sequencing data from adult and developing lungs across vertebrate species, revealing significant similarities in cell composition, developmental trajectories and gene expression patterns. Surprisingly, a large proportion of lung-related genes, coexpression patterns and many lung enhancers are present in cartilaginous fishes despite their lack of lungs, suggesting that a substantial genetic foundation for lung development existed in the last common ancestor of jawed vertebrates. In addition, the 1,040 enhancers that emerged since the last common ancestor of bony fishes probably contain lung-specific elements that led to the development of lungs. We further identified alveolar type 1 cells as a mammal-specific alveolar cell type, along with several mammal-specific genes, including ager and sfta2, that are highly expressed in lungs. Functional validation showed that deletion of sfta2 in mice leads to severe respiratory defects, highlighting its critical role in mammalian lung features. Our study provides comprehensive insights into the evolution of vertebrate lungs, demonstrating how both regulatory network modifications and the emergence of new genes have shaped lung development and specialization across species.
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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.