UQ research touches a nerve

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UQ research touches a nerve

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-08/ra-urt082008.php

University of Queensland researchers have traced the origins of one

of the most important steps in animal evolution – the development of

nerves.

Professor Bernie Degnan, from UQ's School of Integrative Biology,

together with PhD student Gemma s and colleagues from France,

have traced the evolution of the nerve cell by looking for pre-

cursors in, of all places, the marine sponge.

" Sponges have one of the most ancient lineages and don't have nerve

cells, " Professor Degnan said.

" So we are pretty confident it was after the sponges split from trunk

of the tree of life and sponges went one way and animals developed

from the other, that nerves started to form.

" What we found in sponges though were the building blocks for nerves,

something we never expected to find. "

Professor Degnan said the science involved came from the relatively

new area of paleogenomics, which is the study of ancestral genomes to

paint a more accurate picture of animal evolution.

" What we have done is try to find the molecular building blocks of

nerves, or what may be called the nerve's ancestor the proto-neuron, "

he said.

" We found sets of these genes in sponges, when we really didn't

expect it.

" But what was really cool is we took some of these genes and

expressed them in frog and flies and the sponge gene became

functional – the sponge gene directed the formation of nerves in

these more complex animals.

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The research was published recently in the scientific journal Current

Biology and stems from work done by Professor Degnan's lab in mapping

the entire genome of the sea sponge Amphimedon queenslandica.