A morphological and evolutionary study of the multicellularity, the evolutionary transition of organism morphology

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24657045
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Morphology/Structure
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: Hisayoshi Nozaki 東京大学, 理学(系)研究科(研究院), 准教授 (40250104)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 群体性ボルボックス目 / シアワセモ / 多細胞化 / 進化 / 多細胞生物 / テトラバエナ

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The colonial Volvocales represent a model lineage for studies of multicellularity. Tetrabaena socialis is a four-celled species of this order and occupied the most basal phylogenetic position within the order. Based on the present morphological analyses, the four-celled colonial volvocalean species Tetrabaena socialis was demonstrated to be the simplest multicellular organism. These results will contribute much to our understanding of the multicellularity. Further studies using T. socialis will resolve fundamental molecular bases of evolution from unicellular to multicellular organization. Currently, we are searching key genes for the evolution of the multicellular organism by using the whole genome data of T. socialis.

Free Research Field

進化生物学