The genome of the deep-sea anemone Actinernus sp. contains a mega-array of ANTP-class homeobox genes

Author:

Law Sean Tsz Sum1,Yu Yifei1,Nong Wenyan1,So Wai Lok1,Li Yiqian1,Swale Thomas2,Ferrier David E. K.3,Qiu Jianwen45ORCID,Qian Peiyuan46ORCID,Hui Jerome Ho Lam1ORCID

Affiliation:

1. School of Life Sciences, Simon F.S. Li Marine Science Laboratory, State Key Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology, Institute of Environment, Energy and Sustainability, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, People's Republic of China

2. Dovetail Genomics, LLC, Scotts Valley, CA 95066, USA

3. The Scottish Oceans Institute, Gatty Marine Laboratory, School of Biology, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, UK

4. Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Guangzhou), Guangzhou, People's Republic of China

5. Department of Biology, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, People's Republic of China

6. Department of Ocean Science, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, People's Republic of China

Abstract

Members of the phylum Cnidaria include sea anemones, corals and jellyfish, and have successfully colonized both marine and freshwater habitats throughout the world. The understanding of how cnidarians adapt to extreme environments such as the dark, high-pressure deep-sea habitat has been hindered by the lack of genomic information. Here, we report the first chromosome-level deep-sea cnidarian genome, of the anemone Actinernus sp., which was 1.39 Gbp in length and contained 44 970 gene models including 14 806 tRNA genes and 30 164 protein-coding genes. Analyses of homeobox genes revealed the longest chromosome hosts a mega-array of Hox cluster, HoxL, NK cluster and NKL homeobox genes; until now, such an array has only been hypothesized to have existed in ancient ancestral genomes. In addition to this striking arrangement of homeobox genes, analyses of microRNAs revealed cnidarian-specific complements that are distinctive for nested clades of these animals, presumably reflecting the progressive evolution of the gene regulatory networks in which they are embedded. Also, compared with other sea anemones, circadian rhythm genes were lost in Actinernus sp., which likely reflects adaptation to living in the dark. This high-quality genome of a deep-sea cnidarian thus reveals some of the likely molecular adaptations of this ecologically important group of metazoans to the extreme deep-sea environment. It also deepens our understanding of the evolution of genome content and organization of animals in general and cnidarians in particular, specifically from the viewpoint of key developmental control genes like the homeobox-encoding genes, where we find an array of genes that until now has only been hypothesized to have existed in the ancient ancestor that pre-dated both the cnidarians and bilaterians.

Publisher

The Royal Society

Subject

General Agricultural and Biological Sciences,General Environmental Science,General Immunology and Microbiology,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,General Medicine

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