bioRxiv 2023.10.30.564762; doi:10.1101/2023.10.30.564762

Elise Parey, Olga Ortega-Martinez, Jérôme Delroisse, Laura Piovani, Anna Czarkwiani, David Dylus, Srishti Arya, Samuel Dupont, Michael Thorndyke, Tomas Larsson, Kerstin Johannesson, Katherine M. Buckley, Pedro Martinez, Paola Oliveri, Ferdinand Marlétaz

The brittle star genome illuminates the genetic basis of animal appendage regeneration

“We showed that the ‘Eleutherozoa Linkage Groups’ descend from a single fusion of ancestral bilaterian linkages (B2+C2).” “Interestingly, sea cucumbers have the lowest rate of inter-chromosomal rearrangements, yet the most derived echinoderm body plan (Rahman et al. 2019), which highlights the uncoupling of global genomic rearrangements from morphological evolution.” “In contrast with its sea star sister-group, the A. filiformis genome is highly rearranged: our analyses identified 26 inter-chromosomal rearrangements since the Eleutherozoa ancestor.”