The evolution of an ancient metazoan biomineralization strategy was supported by a horizontal gene transfer

The molecular mechanisms that generate morphological novelty are of great interest to evolutionary biologists because these are the processes that can explain how the diversity of life on earth arose. With advances in sequencing technologies, the high-throughput analysis and comparison of entire genomes is now possible. Bioinformatic mining of such genome-wide data sets often includes a search for horizontal gene transfers (HGTs) as these events can provide exciting insight into how morphological, or physiological novelties may have arisen. A recent paper by Jackson et al.1 demonstrates that a HGT into the genome of the sponge Astrosclera willeyana likely supported the evolution of this animal's biomineralization strategy. This HGT, which occurred deep in time, was perhaps a key event in the evolution of this animal's body form and would not have been detected by certain in silico methods commonly used to screen large data sets.