Indirect development, transdifferentiation and the macroregulatory evolution of metazoans

Abstract

It is proposed here that a biphasic life cycle with partial dedifferentiation of intermediate juvenile or larval stages represents the mainstream developmental mode of metazoans. Developmental plasticity of differentiated cells is considered the essential characteristic of indirect development, rather than the exclusive development of the adult from ‘set-aside’ cells. Many differentiated larval cells of indirect developers resume proliferation, partially dedifferentiate and contribute to adult tissues. Transcriptional pluripotency of differentiated states has premetazoan origins and seems to be facilitated by histone variant H2A.Z. Developmental plasticity of differentiated states also facilitates the evolution of polyphenism. Uncertainty remains about whether the most recent common ancestor of protostomes and deuterostomes was a direct or an indirect developer, and how the feeding larvae of bilaterians are related to non-feeding larvae of sponges and cnidarians. Feeding ciliated larvae of bilaterians form their primary gut opening by invagination, which seems related to invagination in cnidarians. Formation of the secondary gut opening proceeds by protostomy or deuterostomy, and gene usage suggests serial homology of the mouth and anus. Indirect developers do not use the Hox vector to build their ciliated larvae, but the Hox vector is associated with the construction of the reproductive portion of the animal during feeding-dependent posterior growth. It is further proposed that the original function of the Hox cluster was in gonad formation rather than in anteroposterior diversification.