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A radical evolutionary makeover gave echinoderms their unusual body plan

Echinoderms such as starfish are unusual for their five-fold body symmetry. Maps of gene-expression patterns show how this body plan was acquired, and that the genes specifying head structures do the heavy lifting.
  1. Thurston Lacalli

    1. Thurston Lacalli is affiliated with the Biology Department, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, V8W 3N5, Canada.

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Starfish and sea urchins belong to a group of marine invertebrates known as echinoderms, which stand out among other animals because of their unusual body plan. Most animal phyla are part of the group Bilateria, united by having bilateral symmetry, a head and a tail end (anterior–posterior axis) and opposing dorsal and ventral surfaces, corresponding to the back and abdomen. Echinoderms are bilaterians, but are something of an outlier because they replaced this basic bilaterian body plan with one in which five identical body parts radiate out from a central mouth (Fig. 1). Writing in Nature, Formery et al.1 reveal how echinoderms evolved this peculiar five-fold symmetry.

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Nature 623, 485-486 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-03123-1

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 08 November 2023: This article incorrectly stated that echinoderms are by far humanity’s closest relatives among invertebrates. In fact, they are among humanity’s closest invertebrate relatives.

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Competing Interests

The author declares no completing interests.

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