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We would like to thank Jose Luis Ferran for advices on the revision. This work benefited from access to the Observatoire Oceanologique de Banyuls-sur-Mer, an EMBRC-France and EMBRC-ERIC site. Embryo imaging experiments were undertaken using the material of the BIOPIC platform. The laboratory of H.E. and S.B. was supported by the CNRS, and by the "Agence Nationale de la Recheche" under the grants ANR-19-CE13-0011 to H.E. and ANR-21-CE13-0034 to S.B. Research in A.S-P. group was supported by the European Research Council (ERC-StG 851647 to A.S-P.) and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2021-124757NB-I00 to A.S-P.). X.G-B. is supported by the European Union's H2020 research and innovation program under Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement 101031767 to X.G-B. A.E. was supported by FPI PhD fellowships from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. J.J.T. was supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (grant PID2019-103921GB-I00 and PID2022-141288NB-I00 to J.T.). M.I. laboratory research has been funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (ERCCoG-LS2-101002275 to M.I.), by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (PID2020-115040GB-I00 to M.I.) and by the 'Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa 2013-2017'(SEV-2012-0208 to M. I.).

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An amphioxus neurula stage cell atlas supports a complex scenario for the emergence of vertebrate head mesoderm

Publicated to:Nature Communications. 15 (1): 4550- - 2024-05-29 15(1), DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-48774-4

Authors: Grau-Bove, Xavier; Subirana, Lucie; Meister, Lydvina; Soubigou, Anael; Neto, Ana; Elek, Anamaria; Naranjo, Silvia; Fornas, Oscar; Gomez-Skarmeta, Jose Luis; Tena, Juan J; Irimia, Manuel; Bertrand, Stephanie; Sebe-Pedros, Arnau; Escriva, Hector

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Abstract

The emergence of new structures can often be linked to the evolution of novel cell types that follows the rewiring of developmental gene regulatory subnetworks. Vertebrates are characterized by a complex body plan compared to the other chordate clades and the question remains of whether and how the emergence of vertebrate morphological innovations can be related to the appearance of new embryonic cell populations. We previously proposed, by studying mesoderm development in the cephalochordate amphioxus, a scenario for the evolution of the vertebrate head mesoderm. To further test this scenario at the cell population level, we used scRNA-seq to construct a cell atlas of the amphioxus neurula, stage at which the main mesodermal compartments are specified. Our data allowed us to validate the presence of a prechordal-plate like territory in amphioxus. Additionally, the transcriptomic profile of somite cell populations supports the homology between specific territories of amphioxus somites and vertebrate cranial/pharyngeal and lateral plate mesoderm. Finally, our work provides evidence that the appearance of the specific mesodermal structures of the vertebrate head was associated to both segregation of pre-existing cell populations, and co-option of new genes for the control of myogenesis. The evolution of the vertebrate head mesoderm involved the emergence of new structures and cell types. Here the authors generated a cell atlas of the cephalochordate neurula to study the origins of these novelties and propose a revised scenario for the evolution of the vertebrate head muscles.

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