Segmentation is the secret behind the extraordinary diversification of animals.
Segmentation, the repetition of identical anatomical units, seems to be the secret behind the diversity and longevity of the largest and most common animal groups on Earth. Investigators from the CNRS and Université Paris Diderot (amongst others Guillaume Balavoine et Michel Vervoort at the Institut Jacques Monod) have shown that this characteristic was inherited from a common segmented ancestor thought to have lived 600 million years ago and whose presence “changed the face of the world”.
This discovery was published in Science on 16 July 2010.
To find out more...
Hedgehog Signaling Regulates Segment Formation in the Annelid Platynereis
Nicolas Dray, Kristin Tessmar-Raible, Martine Le Gouar, Laura Vibert, Foteini Christodoulou, Katharina Schipany, Aurélien Guillou, Juliane Zantke, Heidi Snyman, Julien Béhague, Michel Vervoort, Detlev Arendt, & Guillaume Balavoine
Abstract
or at the CNRS web site
Contact:
Guillaume Balavoine, Group Evolution and Development of Metazoans, Institut Jacques Monod.
Last modified 03/14/2011