Naslov
Sponges : simple animals with complex genomes

Autori
Pleše, Bruna ; Ćetković, Helena

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Izvornik
Memorias XLVI Congreso Nacional de Ciencias Biologicas / Landazuri, Patricia - Lahti : Asociación Colombiana de Ciencias Biológicas, 2011, 22-22

Skup
Congreso Nacional de Ciencias Biologicas (46 ; 2011)

Mjesto i datum
Medellín, Kolumbija, 11.10.2011. - 15.10.2011

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Plenarno

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
Porifera; biodiversity; genomes; Mitochondrial evolution

Sažetak
Fossil traces extracted from rock sediments in an oil field on the Arabian Peninsula, dating back prior 635 million years ago, are implying that sponges (Porifera) are the oldest known animals. Life on Earth was severe about 580 million years ago and sponges, the most basal group in the animal phylogeny, laid the foundation for all animal life to follow. Sponges evolved along with physico-chemical changes in environment which gave rise to the big bang of metazoan radiation prior to the period of Cambrian Explosion. Sponges are mainly marine but a few taxa within Demospongiae (suborder Spongillina) live in freshwater. These simple animals with a plain morphology have an essential role in studying genome evolution of Metazoa. Several studies showed that sponges have strikingly complex genomes in terms of gene content and functional repertoire, thereby establishing ancient origins for many of the genes previously thought to be vertebrate innovations. Therefore, research of these living fossils is important for evolutionary studies. Regardless of intensive morphology and molecular biology research, phylogenetic relationships among sponges, especially freshwater, are not fully resolved and represent a challenging topic. During the last years, analyses of the mitochondrial genome became a powerful tool to resolve the phylogenetic relationships among the various eukaryotic lineages and to elucidate the early events during evolution of multicellularity. The size of their mitochondrial (mt) genome exhibit an interesting intermediate state between the large 76 kbp choanoflagellate and the typical bilaterian mt genomes which make them a perfect choice for investigating ancient animal relationships and mitochondrial genome evolution.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Biologija

POVEZANOST RADA