DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Evolution of Asymmetry in Flatfishes (Pleuronectiformes: Percomorpha)

比目鱼(Pleuronectiformes)是商业上重要的比目鱼、比目鱼和比目鱼，表现出最显著的脊椎动物变态之一，即两侧(左右)对称的幼体的一只眼睛迁移到头部的相反一侧，导致幼体和成体高度不对称。尽管这种转变的复杂性和独特性，但几乎对其进化起源或变化背后的机制一无所知。比目鱼是唯一一种与两侧对称的身体规划如此戏剧性偏离的脊椎动物，这使它们成为对与这种身体不对称相关的调控基因和解剖结构进行首次比较研究的理想群体。通过对DNA序列数据和核磁共振图像的分析，我们的目标是解决比目鱼的进化关系，研究参与左右轴形成的发育调控基因的进化，并评估头部结构的起源，这些结构被假设为比目鱼特有的，并进化为适应海底生活的结构。研究与脊椎动物不对称有关的解剖结构，以及产生这种奇怪解剖结构的分子机制，将为双侧不对称的进化提供新的解释。

Flatfishes (Pleuronectiformes), the commercially important soles, flounders, and halibuts, exhibit one of the most remarkable vertebrate metamorphoses, where one eye of a bilaterally (left-right) symmetrical larva migrates to the opposite side of the head, resulting in highly asymmetrical juvenile and adult forms. Despite the complexity and uniqueness of this transformation, virtually nothing is known about its evolutionary origin or the mechanism behind the change. Flatfishes are the only vertebrates to deviate so dramatically from a bilaterally symmetrical body plan, making them an ideal group to conduct the first comparative studies of regulatory genes and anatomical structures associated with this body asymmetry. Through analyses of DNA sequence data and MRI images we aim to resolve the evolutionary relationships of flatfishes, examine the evolution of developmental regulatory genes involved in left-right axis formation and assess the origins of structures in the head hypothesized to be unique to flatfishes and to have evolved as adaptations to a life on the sea floor. Examination of anatomical structures associated with vertebrate asymmetry and of the molecular mechanisms generating this bizarre anatomy will provide for a novel interpretation of the evolution of bilateral asymmetry.