The genome of the deep-sea anemone Actinernus sp. contains a mega-array of ANTP-class homeobox genes
Abstract
Members of the phylum Cnidaria include sea anemones, corals and jellyfish, and have successfully colonized both marine and freshwater habitats throughout the world. The understanding of how cnidarians adapt to extreme environments such as the dark, high-pressure deep-sea habitat has been hindered by the lack of genomic information. Here, we report the first chromosome-level deep-sea cnidarian genome, of the anemone Actinernus sp., which was 1.39 Gbp in length and contained 44 970 gene models including 14 806 tRNA genes and 30 164 protein-coding genes. Analyses of homeobox genes revealed the longest chromosome hosts a mega-array of Hox cluster, HoxL, NK cluster and NKL homeobox genes; until now, such an array has only been hypothesized to have existed in ancient ancestral genomes. In addition to this striking arrangement of homeobox genes, analyses of microRNAs revealed cnidarian-specific complements that are distinctive for nested clades of these animals, presumably reflecting the progressive evolution of the gene regulatory networks in which they are embedded. Also, compared with other sea anemones, circadian rhythm genes were lost in Actinernus sp., which likely reflects adaptation to living in the dark. This high-quality genome of a deep-sea cnidarian thus reveals some of the likely molecular adaptations of this ecologically important group of metazoans to the extreme deep-sea environment. It also deepens our understanding of the evolution of genome content and organization of animals in general and cnidarians in particular, specifically from the viewpoint of key developmental control genes like the homeobox-encoding genes, where we find an array of genes that until now has only been hypothesized to have existed in the ancient ancestor that pre-dated both the cnidarians and bilaterians.
Citation
Law , S T S , Yu , Y , Nong , W , So , W L , Li , Y , Swale , T , Ferrier , D E K , Qiu , J , Qian , P & Hui , J H L 2023 , ' The genome of the deep-sea anemone Actinernus sp. contains a mega-array of ANTP-class homeobox genes ' , Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences , vol. 290 , no. 2009 , 20231563 . https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.1563
Publication
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1471-2954Type
Journal article
Description
This study was supported by Hong Kong Research Grant Council Collaborative Research Fund CRF (grant no. C4015-20EF), General Research Fund GRF (grant no. 14100420), CUHK Direct Grant (grant nos. 4053489 and 4053547), Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Guangzhou) (grant nos. HJ202101, SMSEGL20SC01 and SMSEGL20SC02) and Major Project of Basic and Applied Basic Research of Guangdong Province (grant no. 2019B030302004).Collections
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