2013 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Evolution of Eye as sensory organ

Research Project

Project/Area Number	23370098
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	Evolutionary biology
Research Institution	National Institute of Genetics
Principal Investigator	IKEO KAZUHO 国立遺伝学研究所, 生命情報研究センター, 准教授 (20249949)
Project Period (FY)	2011-04-01 – 2014-03-31
Keywords	分子進化
Research Abstract	To understand the process and origin of various eyes, I conducted comparative evolutionary study by using next generation sequence technology. For the purpose, I took two different types of Jellyfish with and without eye and also dinoflagellate with different types of lens eye. RNA-seq by next generation sequence technology performed collection of gene expression profiles of the species. The visual pigment of dinoflagellate showed the similarity with bacterial pigment and it suggests the origin of their eye-like structure related to bacterial origin. The other side, the result of jellyfish showed the molecules related their lens development evolutionaliry related with our genes, thus, jellyfish already gain molecular system for lens conformation before establishing nervous system. Now, we still continue more fine analysis of the data.