BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Gene re-usages constrained the evolvability of the animal body pla
 n? - Naoki Irie (University of Tokyo)
DTSTART:20180516T120000Z
DTEND:20180516T130000Z
UID:TALK104365@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Olivia Tidswell
DESCRIPTION:Despite morphological diversification of chordates over > 550 
 million years of evolution\, their shared basic anatomical pattern (or ‘
 body plan’) remains conserved by unknown mechanisms. The developmental 
 hourglass model explains this by the conservation of organogenesis phase 
 (= phylotypic period)\, however\, no consensus has been made to why this 
 phase has been conserved.   Here we collected early-to-late embryonic ge
 ne expression profiles from 8 chordate species\, and analyzed their featu
 res to find a hint to this problem. We found that vertebrates’ conserve
 d mid-embryonic developmental programs are intensively recruited to other 
 developmental processes\, and the degree of the recruitment positively co
 rrelates with their evolutionary conservation and essentiality for normal
  development.  Based on the results\, we propose that the intensively re
 cruited genetic system during vertebrates’ organogenesis period imposed 
 constraints on its diversification through pleiotropic constraints\, which
  ultimately led to the common anatomical pattern observed in vertebrates.
  Our findings not only imply that pleiotropic constraint also acts at reg
 ulatory level\, but also highlights the “cost of complexity” hypothes
 is\, which predicted that more complex organisms have less phenotypic evol
 vability.
LOCATION:Part II Lecture Theatre\, Department of Zoology
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR