Early animal evolution: reconstructing the last common metazoan ancestor through the analysis of developmental and structural genes in sponges

所有动物，从最简单的无脊椎动物到人类，都起源于共同的祖先。重建这一祖先需要后生动物发育遗传结构的比较。在这里，我们通过研究一种在系统发育和生物学上适宜的后生动物系统--海洋海绵胚胎和幼虫，为这一追求做出贡献。使用高通量基因图谱技术，我们将分析海绵身体计划背后的发育遗传学。海绵和更复杂的动物之间的共同点很可能存在于最古老的后生动物祖先的“遗传工具箱”中，因此，也是所有动物生物多样性产生的遗传基础。

All animals, from the simplest invertebrates to humans, arose from a common ancestor. Reconstruction of this ancestor requires the comparison of metazoan developmental genetic architectures. Here we contribute to this pursuit by studying a phylogenetically and biological appropriate metazoan system - marine sponge embryos and larvae. Using high-throughput gene profiling techniques, we will analyse the developmental genetics underlying the sponge body plan. Commonalities shared between sponges and more sophisticated animals are likely to have been present in the "genetic toolkit" of the most ancient metazoan ancestor and, as such, is the genetic foundation from which all animal biodiversity arose.