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SUMMARY:The origin of animal morphogenesis: insights from choanoflagellate
 s - Thibaut Brunet (UC Berkeley)
DTSTART:20200226T130000Z
DTEND:20200226T140000Z
UID:TALK140356@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:George Fortune
DESCRIPTION:\nContractile cell types are universally present in animals an
 d fundamental to animal life. Contractions of individual\, scattered cells
  underlies amoeboid cell migration\, which is prevalent in both adult orga
 nisms and embryos\, while tissue-scale collective cell contractility under
 lies both embryonic morphogenesis and adult motricity. However\, the origi
 n of animal contractile cell types remains obscure. As the sister group of
  animals\, choanoflagellates hold the promise of illuminating the evolutio
 nary origins of animal cell biology. Intriguingly\, choanoflagellate genom
 es encode an extensive complement of homologs to animal contractility gene
 s\, suggesting the involvement of (yet unidentified) contractile processes
  in their life history. Here\, I report on the recent discovery of both in
 dividual and collective cell contractility in choanoflagellates. Under con
 finement\, the model choanoflagellate Salpingoeca rosetta rapidly undergoe
 s a phenotypic switch from a flagellate to an amoeboid cell phenotype that
  resemble animal migratory cells in both structure and function. This repr
 esents an unexpected expansion of the known phenotypic repertoire of choan
 oflagellates and suggests an ancient origin for animal crawling cells\, in
  line with the temporal-to-spatial transition hypothesis for the origin of
  animal cell types. Finally\, collective cell contractility has also been 
 recently discovered in a newly discovered colonial choanoflagellate isolat
 ed from a Carribean island\, that undergoes rapid and reversible whole-col
 ony inversion in response to external photic and mechanical stimuli.
LOCATION:MR11\, Centre for Mathematical Sciences\, Wilberforce Road\, Camb
 ridge
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