engleski

Towards an insight into the metazoan gene regulation and development: genome draft of the endemic freshwater sponge Eunapius subterraneus

Large scale –omics projects have provided valuable data across the animal kingdom and have revealed remarkable complexity and diversity of animal genomes. Given the rapid advances in genomic data collection and bioinformatics analysis methods, unique opportunity opens up towards the elucidation of early metazoan gene regulation and development. With their pivotal evolutionary position of arguably the simplest extant and earliest branching metazoans, sponges are rapidly gaining focus in genomic research, however, more genomic information within the sponge phylum is required. We sequenced the genome of the freshwater sponge Eunapius subterraneus using a combination of next-generation sequencing technologies (Illumina and Oxford Nanopore) and assembled a draft version of its genome. Eunapius subterraneus is the only stygobitic sponge species, an endemic member of the suborder Spongillina (freshwater sponges) known from merely six caves near Ogulin, Croatia. This endemic sponge was shown to possess numerous unique morphological, molecular and ecological features. Using the - omics methodologies in combination with experimental approaches, we aim to dive more deeply into the understanding of some of the basic processes involved in multicellular development and differentiation.

Eunapius subterraneus ; genome sequencing ; Metazoa

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