The draft genome of Ciona intestinalis: Insights into chordate and vertebrate origins

Paramvir Dehal, Yutaka Satou, Robert K. Campbell, Jarrod Chapman, Bernard Degnan, Anthony De Tomaso, Brad Davidson, Anna Di Gregorio, Maarten Gelpke, David M. Goodstein, Naoe Harafuji, Kenneth E.M. Hastings, Isaac Ho, Kohji Hotta, Wayne Huang, Takeshi Kawashima, Patrick Lemaire, Diego Martinez, Ian A. Meinertzhagen, Simona NeculaMasaru Nonaka, Nik Putnam, Sam Rash, Hidetoshi Saiga, Masanobu Satake, Astrid Terry, Lixy Yamada, Hong Gang Wang, Satoko Awazu, Kaoru Azumi, Jeffrey Boore, Margherita Branno, Stephen Chin-bow, Rosaria DeSantis, Sharon Doyle, Pilar Francino, David N. Keys, Shinobu Haga, Hiroko Hayashi, Kyosuke Hino, Kaoru S. Imai, Kazuo Inaba, Shungo Kano, Kenji Kobayashi, Mari Kobayashi, Byung In Lee, Kazuhiro W. Makabe, Chitra Manohar, Giorgio Matassi, Monica Medina, Yasuaki Mochizuki, Steve Mount, Tomomi Morishita, Sachiko Miura, Akie Nakayama, Satoko Nishizaka, Hisayo Nomoto, Fumiko Ohta, Kazuko Oishi, Isidore Rigoutsos, Masako Sano, Akane Sasaki, Yasunori Sasakura, Eiichi Shoguchi, Tadasu Shin-i, Antoinetta Spagnuolo, Didier Stainier, Miho M. Suzuki, Olivier Tassy, Naohito Takatori, Miki Tokuoka, Kasumi Yagi, Fumiko Yoshizaki, Shuichi Wada, Cindy Zhang, P. Douglas Hyatt, Frank Larimer, Chris Detter, Norman Doggett, Tijana Glavina, Trevor Hawkins, Paul Richardson, Susan Lucas, Yuji Kohara, Michael Levine, Nori Satoh, Daniel S. Rokhsar

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1404 Scopus citations

Abstract

The first chordates appear in the fossil record at the time of the Cambrian explosion, nearly 550 million years ago. The modern ascidian tadpole represents a plausible approximation to these ancestral chordates. To illuminate the origins of chordate and vertebrates, we generated a draft of the protein-coding portion of the genome of the most studied ascidian, Ciona intestinalis. The Ciona genome contains ̃16,000 protein-coding genes, similar to the number in other invertebrates, but only half that found in vertebrates. Vertebrate gene families are typically found in simplified form in Ciona, suggesting that ascidians contain the basic ancestral complement of genes involved in cell signaling and development. The ascidian genome has also acquired a number of lineage-specific innovations, including a group of genes engaged in cellulose metabolism that are related to those in bacteria and fungi.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)2157-2167
Number of pages11
JournalScience
Volume298
Issue number5601
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 13 2002
Externally publishedYes

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General

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