Genome of marine organism tells of humans' unicellular ancestors

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Choanoflagellates are aquatic microbial eukaryotes that are distinguished by an apical flagellum (green) which is used for swimming and feeding surrounded by a collar of microvilli or tentacles (red) against which bacterial prey are trapped. The nucl ...
Choanoflagellates are aquatic microbial eukaryotes that are distinguished by an apical flagellum (green), which is used for swimming and feeding, surrounded by a collar of microvilli or tentacles (red) against which bacterial prey are trapped. The nucleus is highlighted in blue. Credit: Nicole King laboratory, UC Berkeley

The newly sequenced genome of a one-celled, planktonic marine organism, reported today in the journal Nature, is already telling scientists about the evolutionary changes that accompanied the jump from one-celled life forms to multicellular animals like ourselves.


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