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Published on: August 31, 2018

Evolutionary genomics of fast evolving tunicates.

Luisa Berná¹, Fernando Alvarez-Valin²

¹Sección Biomatemática, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, UruguayUnidad de Biología Molecular, Institut Pasteur Montevideo, Montevideo, Uruguay.

Genome Biology and Evolution

|July 11, 2014

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Tunicates, close relatives of vertebrates, show remarkable genome evolution. Oikopleura dioica and Ciona intestinalis exhibit extreme genome reduction and accelerated molecular evolution, with Oikopleura being the fastest evolving metazoan.

Keywords:

Ciona Oikopleura dioica genome plasticity positive selection

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Following the Dynamics of Structural Variants in Experimentally Evolved Populations

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Area of Science:

Marine biology
Evolutionary biology
Genomics

Background:

Tunicates are key to understanding vertebrate evolution due to their phylogenetic position.
Recent genomic studies reveal unique genome organization and molecular evolutionary patterns in tunicates.

Purpose of the Study:

To review and compare genome organization and molecular evolution in two model tunicates: Oikopleura dioica and Ciona intestinalis.
To highlight similarities and specificities in their genomic plasticity and evolutionary rates.

Main Methods:

Comparative genomics analysis of Oikopleura dioica and Ciona intestinalis.
Review of molecular evolutionary patterns and rates.
Analysis of genome reduction and compaction mechanisms.

Main Results:

Oikopleura dioica displays extreme genome reduction and compaction through mechanisms like reduced intergenic distances and introns, and fewer mobile elements.
Ciona intestinalis shows less severe genome reorganization, retaining more similarities with other chordates.
Tunicates exhibit accelerated molecular evolution, with Ciona evolving 50% faster than vertebrates and Oikopleura evolving three times faster, making it the fastest known metazoan.

Conclusions:

Tunicates possess highly plastic genomes and exhibit accelerated molecular evolution.
Adaptive evolution likely drives accelerated evolution in regulatory genes in tunicates.
Further research is needed to clarify the causes of accelerated evolution across the entire genome in tunicates.