Biodiversity-based development and evolution: the emerging research systems in model and non-model organisms

Abstract

Evolutionary developmental biology, or Evo-Devo for short, has become an established field that, broadly speaking, seeks to understand how changes in development drive major transitions and innovation in organismal evolution. It does so via integrating the principles and methods of many subdisciplines of biology. Although we have gained unprecedented knowledge from the studies on model organisms in the past decades, many fundamental and crucially essential processes remain a mystery. Considering the tremendous biodiversity of our planet, the current model organisms seem insufficient for us to understand the evolutionary and physiological processes of life and its adaptation to exterior environments. The currently increasing genomic data and the recently available gene-editing tools make it possible to extend our studies to non-model organisms. In this review, we review the recent work on the regulatory signaling of developmental and regeneration processes, environmental adaptation, and evolutionary mechanisms using both the existing model animals such as zebrafish and Drosophila, and the emerging nonstandard model organisms including amphioxus, ascidian, ciliates, single-celled phytoplankton, and marine nematode. In addition, the challenging questions and new directions in these systems are outlined as well.

Loss of Ift74 Leads to Slow Photoreceptor Degeneration and Ciliogenesis Defects in Zebrafish

“…Mutation of the ift74 gene led to body curvature defects, which is a characteristic phenotype of ciliary mutants. The formation of a curly body axis was caused by abnormal urotensin signals originated from cilia-driven cerebrospinal fluid flow [23,28]. In line with this, we found ciliogenesis defects in multiple organs in the mutants as early as 3 dpf (Figure S2).…”

“…Considering that Ift74 is one of the core IFT-B complex required for ciliogenesis, we first analyzed cilia development in ift74 mutants. Cilia are present in diverse organs of developing zebrafish, including olfactory placode, pronephric duct, ventral spinal cord, ear, photoreceptor, and neuromasts (Figure 2A) [23]. To directly visualize cilia, we performed whole-mount immunocytochemistry with anti-glycylated α-tubulin antibody on 3 and 5 days post fertilization (dpf) zebrafish larvae.…”

JNK Signaling in Drosophila Aging and Longevity

“…The classic function of JNK signaling is to trigger apoptosis for the clearance of abnormal or needless cells [96][97][98][99]. However, increased apoptosis during aging, as observed in gut, muscle, fat, and select subsets of neurons [100,101], results in the destruction and degeneration of these tissues.…”

How Ciliated Protists Survive by Cysts: Some Key Points During Encystment and Excystment

“…Ciliates are a hyper-diverse group of unicellular organisms and an essential component of microbial food webs ( Bai et al, 2020 ; Ma et al, 2020 ; Wu et al, 2020 ; Zhang et al, 2020 ; Zhao et al, 2020 , 2021 ; Chi et al, 2021 ; Wang C. et al, 2021 ). They are characterized by possessing two distinct types of nuclei, the somatic macronucleus and the germline micronucleus, within one cell ( Prescott, 1994 ; Sheng et al, 2020 ).…”