Nature Communications (Apr 2016)

The Gonium pectorale genome demonstrates co-option of cell cycle regulation during the evolution of multicellularity

  • Erik R. Hanschen,
  • Tara N. Marriage,
  • Patrick J. Ferris,
  • Takashi Hamaji,
  • Atsushi Toyoda,
  • Asao Fujiyama,
  • Rafik Neme,
  • Hideki Noguchi,
  • Yohei Minakuchi,
  • Masahiro Suzuki,
  • Hiroko Kawai-Toyooka,
  • David R. Smith,
  • Halle Sparks,
  • Jaden Anderson,
  • Robert Bakarić,
  • Victor Luria,
  • Amir Karger,
  • Marc W. Kirschner,
  • Pierre M. Durand,
  • Richard E. Michod,
  • Hisayoshi Nozaki,
  • Bradley J. S. C. Olson

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11370
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 1
pp. 1 – 10

Abstract

Read online

The undifferentiated Gonium pectorale represents the initial transition to multicellularity. Here, Bradley Olson, Erik Hanschen and colleagues describe the genome of Gonium pectorale, demonstrating that co-option of the retinoblastoma cell cycle regulatory pathway was a key genetic change in the evolution of multicellularity.