Amphioxus as a model to study the evolution of development in chordates.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 37721204.
- Also identified by DOI 10.7554/eLife.87028 and PMC identifier 10506793.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Cephalochordates and tunicates represent the only two groups of invertebrate chordates, and extant cephalochordates - commonly known as amphioxus or lancelets - are considered the best proxy for the chordate ancestor, from which they split around 520 million years ago. Amphioxus has been an important organism in the fields of zoology and embryology since the 18<sup>th</sup> century, and the morphological and genomic simplicity of cephalochordates (compared to vertebrates) makes amphioxus an attractive model for studying chordate biology at the cellular and molecular levels. Here we describe the life cycle of amphioxus, and discuss the natural histories and habitats of the different species of amphioxus. We also describe their use as laboratory animal models, and discuss the techniques that have been developed to study different aspects of amphioxus.
Medical subject headings
- Lancelets
- Urochordata