Unraveling the deep evolutionary roots of animal #multicellularity. Co-PI with Elena Casacuberta @IBE_Barcelona @icreacommun. Join us on our journey! #evolution
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Remember our #Magnificent8?
8 mysterious lineages related to animals, known only from environmental DNA. 🧬
We suspected they were just the tip of the iceberg, hiding many more "unknown unknowns".
Our new preprint suggests we were right. 🧵
👉bit.ly/3TUYowB
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great lab!
Postdoctoral opportunity (3-year JC Fellowship) to join our newly granted project on EvoDevo and Genomics in University of Barcelona - Single-cell omics ...
thenode.biologists.com/postd…
@GeneticsUB @IRBioUB @the_Node @EvoDevoPanAm @SEBiolDev @sesbe_org
Pls RT
Also PhDs (below)👇👇👇
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Remember our #Magnificent8?
8 mysterious lineages related to animals, known only from environmental DNA. 🧬
We suspected they were just the tip of the iceberg, hiding many more "unknown unknowns".
Our new preprint suggests we were right. 🧵
👉bit.ly/3TUYowB
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2/3 We identified 31 uncharacterized lineages across Holozoa and opisthokonts.
Some are deep evolutionary branches outside any known group of animal relatives. Others are hidden within groups we thought we knew.
Many are widespread, yet we know virtually nothing about them!
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3/7 The scale of the work here is impressive: genomics, chromatin accessibility, DNA methylation, single-cell analyses, venom biology...
But one result particularly caught our attention: colonial complexity does not seem to require a radically new developmental toolkit!
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5/7 Major evolutionary innovations do not necessarily require the invention of entirely new molecular components.
There is also a beautiful contrast in the paper.
Colonial division of labour is largely associated with regulatory redeployment of ancestral programmes,
while...
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1/7 A nice preprint on the #siphonophore Physalia utriculus (the #bluebottle) and an enormous amount of work led by @bogdanoviclab @deMendoza_Alex
Beside the interest of the organism, the paper raises a question we find fascinating. 🧵 @IBE_Barcelona
New preprint out where I had a small contribution. Want to know more about Physalia utriculus? Take a look ! 👇 @bogdanoviclab
@deMendoza_Alex @multicellgenome biorxiv.org/content/10.64898…
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Evolution can innovate without inventing.
Cell type families retain ancient regulatory “vocabularies”, while individual cell types evolve by reshuffling how those motifs are combined.
New cell types from old regulatory words. We like this! @NatureEcoEvo
doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-0…
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A new sea urchin joins the evo-devo toolkit!
Great to see Mespilia globulus established as a new model. @Ferdix @eLife
One model can reveal a specific mechanism. Multiple models can reveal how evolution works.
🔗elifesciences.org/reviewed-p…
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Nice work @thibaut_brunet et al. It fits a view we find compelling: the ancestor of animals may have switched between different cell states, and perhaps different multicellular entities.
Maybe we should reconstruct an ancestral life cycle!
bit.ly/3VDUhp2
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Interesting piece by @QuantaMagazine on how transposable elements went from "junk DNA" to drivers of genome innovation.
Could this negotiation between selfish elements and host genomes have contributed to the origin of animal gene regulation?
Holozoans may help us find out.
We are in no small part made of virus. Over millions of years, our DNA has accumulated so many viral snippets that they now make up 8% of our total genome. quantamagazine.org/how-virus…
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We have a new branch in the family tree of animals: Atreyea- a previously unrecognized lineage among the closest unicellular relatives of animals.
Led by @Mitsikons & Michelle Leger, together with a fantastic group of collaborators.
🔗 papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.…
#protists
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Very grateful to have been part of such a special and emotional day celebrating Sara Bray & Nick Brown at their Retirement Symposium.
Two outstanding scientists and, even more importantly, truly wonderful people.
Thank you, Sara and Nick, for such a memorable day!
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Iñaki Ruiz-Trillo retweeted
@Ruibao6 's first paper from the lab is out in @Nature. nature.com/articles/s41586-0….
Collab with @multicellgenome & Jennah Dharamshi. How did cells stick together and form the first animals?
The protist Ministeria vibrans suggests cellular aggregation played a role.
@IUBChemistry
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Did cell types exist before animals?
What if the first cell types evolved before the first animals?
We'll use #ichthyosporeans, tiny microbes with the potential to reshape how we think about animal origins.
@IBE_Barcelona @the_prbb @CSIC
🧵
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🚨 Master's internship available at our lab.
Join us to investigate the phenotypic plasticity and life cycles of several #ichthyosporean species using cell biology & microscopy.
Interested? Get in touch with Vika Shabardina or DM us. Link: ibe.upf-csic.es/work-with-us…
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Most people have never heard of #apusomonads.
Yet these tiny protists occupy an important position in the eukaryotic tree of life. And we know so little about them!
We're looking for a Master's student to help uncover their hidden diversity. 🧵 @IBE_Barcelona @the_prbb @CSIC
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🚨 Master's internship available at our lab.
Join us to mine global environmental sequencing datasets and build the first global atlas of this fascinating lineage.
Interested? Get in touch with Guifré Torruella or DM
Link: ibe.upf-csic.es/work-with-us…
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