Gene families and the origins of complexity: a comparative genomics approach to better understand multicellularity

Crespo Selma, Blai

Gene families and the origins of complexity: a comparative genomics approach to better understand multicellularity

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Crespo Selma, B. Gene families and the origins of complexity: a comparative genomics approach to better understand multicellularity. 2024. handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10230/68920

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Abstract

The emergence of complex multicellular organisms raises infinite questions within the realm of evolutionary biology, particularly regarding the complicated regulatory mechanisms underlying the transition from unicellular organisms to complex multicellular entities. Among the fundamental factors driving the evolution of multicellular life, it is worth highlighting the emergence and diversification of gene families, such as homeobox transcription factors (TF), which are key in animal development and evolution. In our research on the evolutionary trajectory towards multicellularity, we focus on the analysis of some homeobox gene families using a good repository of complete genomes and transcriptomes at our disposal, and we conduct an exhaustive comparative genomic analysis using specialized bioinformatics tools, on a dataset that includes a broad taxon sampling of Holozoa, something that has not been done yet.