It was a zoological sensation when a living specimen of the coelacanth was first discovered in 1938, as this lineage of lobe-finned fish was thought to have gone extinct 70 million years ago. The modern coelacanth looks remarkably similar to many of its ancient relatives, and its evolutionary proximity to our own fish ancestors provides a glimpse of the fish that first walked on land. Here we report the genome sequence of the African coelacanth, Latimeria chalumnae. Through a phylogenomic analysis, we conclude that the lungfish, and not the coelacanth, is the closest living relative of tetrapods. Coelacanth protein-coding genes are significantly more slowly evolving than those of tetrapods, unlike other genomic features . Analyses of changes in genes and regulatory elements during the vertebrate adaptation to land highlight genes involved in immunity, nitrogen excretion and the development of fins, tail, ear, eye, brain, and olfaction. Functional assays of enhancers involved in the fin-to-limb transition and in the emergence of extra-embryonic tissues demonstrate the importance of the coelacanth genome as a blueprint for understanding tetrapod evolution.
Natural populations subjected to strong environmental selection pressures offer a window into the genetic underpinnings of evolutionary change. Cavefish populations, Astyanax mexicanus (Teleostei: Characiphysi), exhibit repeated, independent evolution for a variety of traits including eye degeneration, pigment loss, increased size and number of taste buds and mechanosensory organs, and shifts in many behavioural traits. Surface and cave forms are interfertile making this system amenable to genetic interrogation; however, lack of a reference genome has hampered efforts to identify genes responsible for changes in cave forms of A. mexicanus. Here we present the first de novo genome assembly for Astyanax mexicanus cavefish, contrast repeat elements to other teleost genomes, identify candidate genes underlying quantitative trait loci (QTL), and assay these candidate genes for potential functional and expression differences. We expect the cavefish genome to advance understanding of the evolutionary process, as well as, analogous human disease including retinal dysfunction.
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