ORCID Profile
0000-0001-7295-6616
Current Organisation
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
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Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 16-01-2014
DOI: 10.1093/GBE/EVU011
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 13-07-2012
Abstract: Multiple visual pigments, prerequisites for color vision, are found in arthropods, but the evolutionary origin of their ersity remains obscure. In this study, we explore the opsin genes in five distantly related species of Onychophora, using deep transcriptome sequencing and screening approaches. Surprisingly, our data reveal the presence of only one opsin gene (onychopsin) in each onychophoran species, and our behavioral experiments indicate a maximum sensitivity of onychopsin to blue-green light. In our phylogenetic analyses, the onychopsins represent the sister group to the monophyletic clade of visual r-opsins of arthropods. These results concur with phylogenomic support for the sister-group status of the Onychophora and Arthropoda and provide evidence for monochromatic vision in velvet worms and in the last common ancestor of Onychophora and Arthropoda. We conclude that the ersification of visual pigments and color vision evolved in arthropods, along with the evolution of compound eyes-one of the most sophisticated visual systems known.
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 20-12-2022
DOI: 10.1101/2022.12.19.520916
Abstract: Why some animals can regenerate while many others cannot remains a fascinating question. Even amongst planarian flatworms, well-known for their ability to regenerate complete animals from small body fragments, species exist that have restricted regeneration abilities or are entirely regeneration incompetent. Towards the goal of probing the evolutionary dynamics of regeneration, we have assembled a erse live collection of planarian species from around the world. The combined quantification of species-specific head regeneration abilities and comprehensive transcriptome-based phylogeny reconstructions reveals multiple independent transitions between robust whole-body regeneration and restricted regeneration in the freshwater species. Our demonstration that the RNAi -mediated inhibition of canonical Wnt signalling can nevertheless bypass all experimentally tractable head regeneration defects in the current collection indicates that the pathway may represent a hot spot in the evolution of planarian regeneration defects. Combined with our finding that Wnt signalling has multiple roles in the reproductive system of the model species S. mediterranea , this raises the possibility of a trade-off between egg-laying and asexual reproduction by fission/regeneration as a driver of regenerative trait evolution. Although initial quantitative comparisons of Wnt signalling levels, reproductive investment, and regenerative abilities across the collection confirm some of the model’s predictions, they also highlight the ersification of molecular mechanisms amongst the ergent planarian lineages. Overall, our study establishes a framework for the mechanistic evolution of regenerative abilities and planarians as model taxon for comparative regeneration research.
No related grants have been discovered for Christoph Bleidorn.