The endoderm is a progenitor tissue that, in humans, gives rise to the majority of internal
organs. Over the past few decades, genetic studies have identified many of the upstream …

Molecular biology has provided a rich dataset to develop hypotheses of nervous system
evolution. The startling patterning similarities between distantly related animals during the …

Twenty years after its proposal, the monophyly of molting protostomes—Ecdysozoa—is a
well-corroborated hypothesis, but the interrelationships of its major subclades are more …

The dichotomy between smooth and striated myocytes is fundamental for bilaterian
musculature, but its evolutionary origin is unsolved. In particular, interrelationships of …

In situ hybridization is a widely employed technique allowing spatial visualization of gene
expression in fixed specimens. It has greatly advanced our understanding of biological …

The Wnt genes represent a large family of secreted glycoprotein ligands that date back to
early animal evolution. Multiple duplication events generated a set of 13 Wnt families of …

It is widely held that the bilaterian tubular gut with mouth and anus evolved from a simple gut
with one major gastric opening. However, there is no consensus on how this happened. Did …

Nutrigenomics explains the interaction between the genome, the proteome, the epigenome,
the metabolome, and the microbiome with the nutritional environment of an organism. It is …

Studies of morphology and developmental patterning in adult stages of many invertebrates
are hindered by opaque structures, such as shells, skeletal elements, and pigment granules …

The emergence of a specialized system for food digestion and nutrient absorption was a
crucial innovation for multicellular organisms. Digestive systems with different levels of …