AMPHIOXUS IN COMPARATIVE GENOMICS AND MOLECULAR DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY

Amphioxus or lancelet, a cephalochordate,is the extant invertebrate most closely related to the proximate ancestor of vertebrate, and has long been regarded as the model animal for insights into the evolution of vertebrate and the embryonic development. Its genetic information on gene sequence and expression pattern is now being widely used for interspecies comparative genome studies and developmental homology analysis. Given its distinct phylogenetic position and its unduplicated genome, amphioxus promises to be especially helpful in comparative genomics. By comparing the genome of amphioxus, invertebrates and vertebrates, we can unravel the genomic structure and evolutionary history of the vertebrate ancestor,which may give us an insight into the origin of the human being. Meanwhile, comparing the developmental genes expression pattern between the amphioxus and other animals can suggest body part homologies between distantly related species, and can help to understand how developmental genes lead to the morphological difference between them.