• A nemertean excitatory peptide/CCHamide regulates ciliary swimming in the larvae of Lineus longissimus 

      Thiel, Daniel; Bauknecht, Philipp; Jékely, Gáspár; Hejnol, Andreas (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2019-07-10)
      Background The trochozoan excitatory peptide (EP) and its ortholog, the arthropod CCHamide, are neuropeptides that are only investigated in very few animal species. Previous studies on different trochozoan species focused ...
    • Neuronal genes deregulated in Cornelia de Lange Syndrome respond to removal and re-expression of cohesin 

      Weiss, Felix D.; Calderon, Lesly; Wang, Yi-Fang; Georgieva, Radina; Guo, Ya; Cvetesic, Nevena; Kaur, Maninder; Dharmalingam, Gopuraja; Krantz, Ian D.; Lenhard, Boris; Fisher, Amanda G.; Merkenschlager, Matthias (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2021)
      Cornelia de Lange Syndrome (CdLS) is a human developmental disorder caused by mutations that compromise the function of cohesin, a major regulator of 3D genome organization. Cognitive impairment is a universal and as yet ...
    • A non-bilaterian perspective on the development and evolution of animal digestive systems 

      Steinmetz, Patrick (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2019-08-07)
      Digestive systems and extracellular digestion are key animal features, but their emergence during early animal evolution is currently poorly understood. As the last common ancestor of non-bilaterian animal groups (sponges, ...
    • A novel measure of non-coding genome conservation identifies genomic regulatory blocks within primates 

      Nash, Alexander J.; Lenhard, Boris (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2018-12-07)
      Motivation Clusters of extremely conserved non-coding elements (CNEs) mark genomic regions devoted to cis-regulation of key developmental genes in Metazoa. We have recently shown that their span coincides with that of ...
    • Nuclear genomic signals of the “microturbellarian” roots of platyhelminth evolutionary innovation 

      Laumer, Christopher E.; Hejnol, Andreas; Giribet, Gonzalo (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2015-03-12)
      Flatworms number among the most diverse invertebrate phyla and represent the most biomedically significant branch of the major bilaterian clade Spiralia, but to date, deep evolutionary relationships within this group have ...
    • NvPOU4/Brain3 Functions as a Terminal Selector Gene in the Nervous System of the Cnidarian Nematostella vectensis 

      Tourniere, Oceane Barbara; Dolan, David William Peter; Richards, Gemma Sian; Sunagar, Kartik; Columbus-Shenkar, Yaara Y; Moran, Yehu; Rentzsch, Fabian (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2020-03)
      Terminal selectors are transcription factors that control the morphological, physiological, and molecular features that characterize distinct cell types. Here, we show that, in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis, NvPOU4 ...
    • NvPrdm14d-expressing neural progenitor cells contribute to non-ectodermal neurogenesis in Nematostella vectensis 

      Lemaitre, Quentin Indiana Bruno; Bartsch, Natascha; Kouzel, Ivan; Busengdal, Henriette; Richards, Gemma Sian; Steinmetz, Patrick; Rentzsch, Fabian (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2023)
      Neurogenesis has been studied extensively in the ectoderm, from which most animals generate the majority of their neurons. Neurogenesis from non-ectodermal tissue is, in contrast, poorly understood. Here we use the cnidarian ...
    • Oikopleura 

      Glover, Joel (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2020)
    • Owenia fusiformis – a basally branching annelid suitable for studying ancestral features of annelid neural development 

      Helm, Conrad; Vöcking, Oliver; Kourtesis, Ioannis; Hausen, Harald (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2016-06-16)
      Background Comparative investigations on bilaterian neurogenesis shed light on conserved developmental mechanisms across taxa. With respect to annelids, most studies focus on taxa deeply nested within the annelid tree, ...
    • Pairwise comparisons across species are problematic when analyzing functional genomic data 

      Dunn, Casey W.; Zapata, Felipe; Munro, Catriona; Siebert, Stefan; Hejnol, Andreas (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2018-01-04)
      There is considerable interest in comparing functional genomic data across species. One goal of such work is to provide an integrated understanding of genome and phenotype evolution. Most comparative functional genomic ...
    • Peptide Inhibitors of the α‑Cobratoxin−Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor Interaction 

      Lynagh, Timothy; Kiontke, Stephan; Meyhoff-Madsen, Maria; Gless, Bengt H.; Johannesen, Jónas; Kattelmann, Sabrina; Christiansen, Anders; Dufva, Martin; Laustsen, Andreas H.; Devkota, Kanchan; Olsen, Christian A.; Kümmel, Daniel; Pless, Stephan Alexander; Lohse, Brian (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2020)
      Venomous snakebites cause >100 000 deaths every year, in many cases via potent depression of human neuromuscular signaling by snake α-neurotoxins. Emergency therapy still relies on antibody-based antivenom, hampered by ...
    • Posterior eyespots in larval chitons have a molecular identity similar to anterior cerebral eyes in other bilaterians 

      Hausen, Harald; Vöcking, Oliver; Kourtesis, Ioannis (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2015-12-22)
      Background: Development of cerebral eyes is generally based on fine-tuned networks and closely intertwined with the formation of brain and head. Consistently and best studied in insects and vertebrates, many signaling ...
    • The Potent Respiratory System of Osedax mucofloris (Siboglinidae, Annelida) - A Prerequisite for the Origin of Bone-Eating Osedax? 

      Huusgaard, Randi S.; Vismann, Bent; Kühl, Michael; Macnaugton, Martin; Colmander, Veronica; Rouse, Greg W.; Glover, Adrian G.; Dahlgren, Thomas; Worsaae, Katrine (Peer reviewed; Journal article, 2012-04-25)
      Members of the conspicuous bone-eating genus, Osedax, are widely distributed on whale falls in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. These gutless annelids contain endosymbiotic heterotrophic bacteria in a branching root system ...
    • Prediction of CpG-island function: CpG clustering vs. sliding-window methods 

      Hackenberg, Michael; Barturen, Guillermo; Carpena, Pedro; Luque-Escamilla, Pedro L.; Previti, Christopher; Oliver, José L. (Peer reviewed; Journal article, 2010-05-26)
      Background Unmethylated stretches of CpG dinucleotides (CpG islands) are an outstanding property of mammal genomes. Conventionally, these regions are detected by sliding window approaches using %G + C, CpG observed/expected ...
    • The premetazoan ancestry of the synaptic toolkit and appearance of first neurons 

      Colgren, Jeffrey John; Burkhardt, Pawel (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2022)
      Neurons, especially when coupled with muscles, allow animals to interact with and navigate through their environment in ways unique to life on earth. Found in all major animal lineages except sponges and placozoans, nervous ...
    • Profile analysis and prediction of tissue-specific CpG island methylation classes 

      Previti, Christopher; Harari, Oscar; Zwir, Igor; del Val, Coral (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2009-04-21)
      Background: The computational prediction of DNA methylation has become an important topic in the recent years due to its role in the epigenetic control of normal and cancer-related processes. While previous prediction ...
    • RAB5A and TRAPPC6B are novel targets for Shiga toxin 2a inactivation in kidney epithelial cells 

      Kouzel, Ivan; Kehl, Alexander; Berger, Petya; Liashkovich, Ivan; Steil, Daniel; Makalowski, Wojciech; Suzuki, Yutaka; Pohlentz, Gottfried; Karch, Helge; Mellmann, Alexander C.; Müthing, Johannes (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2020-03-18)
      The cardinal virulence factor of human-pathogenic enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) is Shiga toxin (Stx), which causes severe extraintestinal complications including kidney failure by damaging renal endothelial ...
    • RADICL-seq identifies general and cell type–specific principles of genome-wide RNA-chromatin interactions 

      Bonetti, Alessandro; Agostini, Federico; Suzuki, Ana Maria; Hashimoto, Kosuke; Pascarella, Giovanni; Gimenez, Juliette; Roos, Leonie; Nash, Alex J.; Ghilotti, Marco; Cameron, Christopher J.  F.; Valentine, Matthew; Medvedeva, Yulia A.; Noguchi, Shuhei; Agirre, Eneritz; Kashi, Kaori; Samudyata, Samudyata; Luginbühl, Joachim; Cazzoli, Riccardo; Agrawal, Saumya; Luscombe, Nicholas M.; Blanchette, Mathieu; Kasukawa, Takeya; de Hoon, Michiel; Arner, Erik; Lenhard, Boris; Plessy, Charles; Castelo-Branco, Gonçalo; Orlando, Valerio; Carninci, Piero (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2020)
      Mammalian genomes encode tens of thousands of noncoding RNAs. Most noncoding transcripts exhibit nuclear localization and several have been shown to play a role in the regulation of gene expression and chromatin remodeling. ...
    • Regulation of Nematostella neural progenitors by SoxB, Notch and bHLH genes 

      Richards, Gemma Sian; Rentzsch, Fabian (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2015-10-06)
      Notch signalling, SoxB and Group A bHLH ‘proneural’ genes are conserved regulators of the neurogenic program in many bilaterians. However, the ancestry of their functions and interactions is not well understood. We address ...
    • Regulatory RNA at the root of animals: dynamic expression of developmental lincRNAs in the calcisponge Sycon ciliatum 

      Bråte, Jon; Adamski, Marcin; Neumann, Ralf Stefan; Shalchian-Tabrizi, Kamran; Adamska, Maja (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2015-12-23)
      Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play important regulatory roles during animal development, and it has been hypothesized that an RNA-based gene regulation was important for the evolution of developmental complexity in animals. ...