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Comment
. 2019 Nov 14:8:e52805.
doi: 10.7554/eLife.52805.

How contraction has shaped evolution

Mukund Thattai  1
Affiliations
Comment

How contraction has shaped evolution

Mukund Thattai. Elife. .

Abstract

Two unicellular relatives of animals reveal that coordinated contractions of groups of cells using actomyosin predated animal multicellularity during evolution.

Keywords: actin; cell biology; cellularization; coenocyte; epithelium; evolution; evolutionary biology; multicellularity.

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Conflict of interest statement

MT No competing interests declared

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Non-animal species in the clade Holozoa exhibit coordinated contractions dependent on actomyosin complexes similar to those observed in modern animals.
Phylogenetic tree of the Holozoa showing the position of animals (Metazoa), choanoflagellates (Choanoflagellata), filastereans (Filasterea) and ichthyosporeans (Ichthyosporea) within this clade (left). The choanoflagellates include Choanoeca flexa (top right), which has flagella that point inwards when the organism is in bright light. In the dark, the cells contract in a coordinated manner that causes the flagella to point outwards, a movement reminiscent of the contractions that cause tissues to curve during animal development (figure adapted from Brunet et al., 2019). The ichthyosporean Sphaeroforma arctica (bottom right) also exhibits actomyosin contractility, invaginating its membrane to generate multiple cells out of a polarized epithelial layer. This movement is comparable to processes that occur during embryonic development in flies (Dudin et al., 2019).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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