41Extensive adenosine-to-inosine (A-to-I) editing of nuclear-transcribed RNAs is the hallmark 42 of metazoan transcriptional regulation, and is fundamental to numerous biochemical processes. 43Here we explore the origin and evolution of this regulatory innovation, by quantifying its 44 prevalence in 22 species that represent all major transitions in metazoan evolution. We provide 45 substantial evidence that extensive RNA editing emerged in the common ancestor of extant 46 metazoans. We find the frequency of RNA editing varies across taxa in a manner independent 47 of metazoan complexity. Nevertheless, cis-acting features that guide A-to-I editing are under 48 strong constraint across all metazoans. RNA editing seems to preserve an ancient mechanism 49 for suppressing the more recently evolved repetitive elements, and is generally nonadaptive in 50 protein-coding regions across metazoans, except for Drosophila and cephalopods. Interestingly, 51RNA editing preferentially target genes involved in neurotransmission, cellular 52 communication and cytoskeleton, and recodes identical amino acid positions in several 53 conserved genes across diverse taxa, emphasizing broad roles of RNA editing in cellular 54 functions during metazoan evolution that have been previously underappreciated. 55
56The central dogma of molecular biology emphasizes how genetic information passes faithfully 57 from DNA, to RNA, to proteins. However, this dogma has been challenged by the phenomenon 58 of RNA editing -a post/co-transcriptional-processing mechanism that can alter RNA 59 sequences by insertion, deletion or substitution of specific nucleotides, thus producing 60 transcripts that are not directly encoded in the genome 1 . In metazoans, the most prevalent form 61 of RNA editing is the deamination of adenosine (A) to inosine (I), which is catalyzed by a 62 family of adenosine deaminases acting on RNA (ADARs) 2,3 . As inosine is recognized in vivo 63 as guanosine by ribosomes and other molecular machinery, RNA editing can affect almost all 64 aspects of cellular RNA functions, from changing mRNA coding potential by altering codons 65 or splicing patterns, to regulating the cellular fate of mRNA by editing its microRNA (miRNA) 66 binding sites 4-6 . RNA editing is particularly pervasive in neural systems, where it has been 67 shown to modulate neural development processes 7,8 , neural network plasticity 9,10 and 68 organismal adaptation to environmental changes [11][12][13] . Defects in RNA editing machinery have 69 been linked to a variety of neurological diseases, autoimmune disorders and cancers 14-18 . 70 Although recent high-throughput sequencing-based analyses have identified a surprisingly 71 large number of RNA-editing sites in different metazoans, including humans 19-23 , mice 24,25 , 72Caenorhabditis elegans 26 , fruit flies 27-30 , ants 31 , bumblebees 32 and cephalopods 33,34 , 73 conclusions about the evolutionary patterns of this phenomenon are inconsistent. For example, 74 while almost all human RNA-editing sites occur...