Lancelets help scientists uncover the secrets of vertebrate gene regulation
Nov. 21 (UPI) -- The research is clear, the physiological complexity that makes modern humans -- and other mammals -- unique from simpler species is a product of gene regulation, not genet quantity. But when and how did vertebrates and mammals evolve the kinds of gene regulatory mechanisms that made human complexity possible? New research -- published Wednesday in the journal Nature -- suggests lancelets, fish-like marine chordates, can provide an answer to the question. "If you really want to understand what makes vertebrates, mammals, humans special, you need to have this basis to compare them, evolutionarily," Ferdinand Marlétaz, a geneticist at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, said in a news release. New genomic analysis suggests organisms that emerged just aft...