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The deuterostome context of chordate origins

Nature volume 520, pages 456–465 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

Our understanding of vertebrate origins is powerfully informed by comparative morphology, embryology and genomics of chordates, hemichordates and echinoderms, which together make up the deuterostome clade. Striking body-plan differences among these phyla have historically hindered the identification of ancestral morphological features, but recent progress in molecular genetics and embryology has revealed deep similarities in body-axis formation and organization across deuterostomes, at stages before morphological differences develop. These developmental genetic features, along with robust support of pharyngeal gill slits as a shared deuterostome character, provide the foundation for the emergence of chordates.

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Figure 1: Deuterostome phylogeny.
Figure 2: Key anatomical features of the enteropneust body plan.
Figure 3: A conserved molecular network for the deuterostome anteroposterior axis.
Figure 4: Comparison of the dorsoventral patterning mechanisms of hemichordates and chordates.

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Acknowledgements

We thank K. Bertsche (http://wanderingfalcon.com), for the scientific illustrations, C. Patton and J. Watanabe for photography of invertebrate micrographs, K. Halanych and J. Cannon for providing pterobranch images, and J. Fritzenwanker for the German translation of Grobben, and helpful discussions. We apologize to authors whose work we were unable to cite due to space limitations, and thank M. Kirschner, A. Pani, T. Lacalli, N. Satoh and N. Holland for discussions that helped formulate these ideas. Support for this work was awarded to C.J.L from NASA (NNX13AI68G) and NSF (1258169), to D.M.M. from NSF (IOS1257040). D.S.R. is supported by the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology and the US National Institutes of Heath through grant R01 GM086321. Work at the Joint Genome Institute is supported by the Office of Science of the US Department of Energy under contract number DE-AC02-05CH11231.

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  1. Department of Biology, Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University, 120 Oceanview Boulevard, Pacific Grove, 93950, California, USA

    Christopher J. Lowe & D. Nathaniel Clarke

  2. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder Ramaley N122 Campus Box 334 Boulder, 80309-0334, Colorado, USA

    Daniel M. Medeiros

  3. Department of Molecular and Cell Biology University of California, Berkeley 142 Life Sciences Addition 3200, Berkeley, 94720-3200, California, USA

    Daniel S. Rokhsar & John Gerhart

  4. Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology 1919-1 Tancha, Onna, 904-0495, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan

    Daniel S. Rokhsar

  5. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, 2800 Mitchell Drive Walnut Creek, 94598, California, USA

    Daniel S. Rokhsar

Authors
  1. Christopher J. Lowe
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  2. D. Nathaniel Clarke
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  3. Daniel M. Medeiros
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  4. Daniel S. Rokhsar
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  5. John Gerhart
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Correspondence to Christopher J. Lowe.

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Lowe, C., Clarke, D., Medeiros, D. et al. The deuterostome context of chordate origins. Nature 520, 456–465 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14434

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