文昌鱼与比较基因组学和分子发育生物学

AMPHIOXUS IN COMPARATIVE GENOMICS AND MOLECULAR DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY

文昌鱼是现存的与脊椎动物原始祖先最接近的无脊椎动物,长期以来一直作为研究动物进化和胚胎发育的典型材料。目前,文昌鱼的基因序列和表达模式已经被广泛用于不同物种之间的比较基因组学研究和发育同源性分析中。文昌鱼独特的进化地位和它未经复制的基因组使其在比较基因组学中有着无可比拟的优越性,通过对文昌鱼、无脊椎动物和脊椎动物的基因组之间的比较,可以揭示脊椎动物原始祖先基因组的结构和演化过程进而探索人类的起源。同时,通过对文昌鱼和其它物种发育基因表达图式的比较可以显示不同生物身体部位之间的同源关系,并可以了解发育基因是如何引起不同物种之间形态变化的。

Amphioxus or lancelet, a cephalochordate, is the extant invertebrate most closely related to the proximate ancestor of vertebrate, and has long been regarded as the model animal for insights into the evolution of vertebrate and the embryonic development. Its genetic information on gene sequence and expression pattern is now being widely used for interspecies comparative genome studies and developmental homology analysis. Given its distinct phylogenetic position and its unduplicated genome, amphioxus promises to be especially helpful in comparative genomics. By comparing the genome of amphioxus, invertebrates and vertebrates, we can unravel the genomic structure and evolutionary history of the vertebrate ancestor, which may give us an insight into the origin of the human being. Meanwhile, comparing the developmental genes expression pattern between the amphioxus and other animals can suggest body part homologies between distantly related species, and can help to understand how developmental genes lead to the morphological difference between them.