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Independent evolution of striated muscles in cnidarians and bilaterians
Open accessAbstract
Striated muscles are present in bilaterian animals (for example, vertebrates, insects and annelids) and some non-bilaterian eumetazoans (that is, cnidarians and ctenophores). The considerable ultrastructural similarity of striated muscles between these animal groups is thought to reflect a common evolutionary origin. Here we show that a muscle protein core set, including a type II myosin heavy chain (MyHC) motor protein characteristic of striated muscles in vertebrates, was already present in unicellular organisms before the origin of multicellular animals. Furthermore, 'striated muscle' and 'non-muscle' myhc orthologues are expressed differentially in two sponges, compatible with a functional diversification before the origin of true muscles and the subsequent use of striated muscle MyHC in fast-contracting smooth and striated muscle. Cnidarians and ctenophores possess striated muscle myhc orthologues but lack crucial components of bilaterian striated muscles, such as genes that code for titin and the troponin complex, suggesting the convergent evolution of striated muscles. Consistently, jellyfish orthologues of a shared set of bilaterian Z-disc proteins are not associated with striated muscles, but are instead expressed elsewhere or ubiquitously. The independent evolution of eumetazoan striated muscles through the addition of new proteins to a pre-existing, ancestral contractile apparatus may serve as a model for the evolution of complex animal cell types.
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“This interpretation is compatible with a recent report that striated musculature evolved independently in bilaterians, cnidarians, and in the ctenophore Euplokamis dunlapae (49).”
From The Genome of the Ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi and Its Implications for Cell Type Evolution (2013) · cites this paper as [49]
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“Striated muscles have evolved at least three times: after the split of the Euplokamis dunlapae lineage from other ctenophores, in select Cnidaria 32 , and in bilaterians 32 (Supplementary Fig. S25).”
From Ctenophore relationships and their placement as the sister group to all other animals (2017) · cites this paper as [32]
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“These data indicate that muscles 21 and, possibly, mesoderm evolved independently in Ctenophora to control the hydroskeleton, body shape and food capture.”
From The ctenophore genome and the evolutionary origins of neural systems (2014) · cites this paper as [21]
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“On the effector side, early metazoan cells already possessed a complex machinery for cellular contractions and shape changes based on a dynamic actomyosin cytoskeleton.”
From Gastric pouches and the mucociliary sole: setting the stage for nervous system evolution (2015) · cites this paper as [36]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Steinmetz, P. R. H., Kraus, J. E. M., Larroux, C., Hammel, J. U., Amon-Hassenzahl, A., Houliston, E., Wörheide, G., Nickel, M., Degnan, B. M., & Technau, U.
- Affiliations
- University of Vienna (AT)
- The University of Queensland (AU)
- Friedrich Schiller University Jena (DE)
- Technische Universität Darmstadt (DE)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Bayerische Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und Geologie (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Technau, Ulrich
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2012-06-27
- Volume
- 487
- Issue
- 7406
- Pages
- 231-234
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- PMC
- PMC3398149
- OpenAlex
- W2005570641
- Cited by
- 252
- References
- 78
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 13 · 2022: 19 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 24 · 2018: 20 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 23 · 2015: 33 · 2014: 16 · 2013: 19 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 16.89
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Animal Science and Zoology › Marine Invertebrate Physiology and Ecology
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Developmental Biology and Gene Regulation
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies
- Keywords
- convergent evolution, Cnidaria, bilaterians, muscle proteins, sponges, ctenophores, jellyfish, Z-disc proteins, contractile apparatus, muscle ultrastructure, titin, troponin, functional diversification
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Cnidaria, Biological Evolution, Gene Expression Regulation, Phylogeny, Myosin Heavy Chains, Gene Duplication, Muscle, Striated
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