Laboratory for Evolutionary Morphology

Evolution can be viewed as series of changes introduced to developmental programs of organisms. The ultimate goal of our research project is to reconstruct the mechanical background of development behind evolutionary novelties in vertebrates, such as jaws and turtle crapace, by comparing developmental processes and patterns between different animal species to identify the changed portion of development, by constructing phenocopies to modify a part of developmental programs of model animals, and by integrating the experimental data with fossil data, phylogenetic trees based on molecular data, and variety of genomes in animals.

Research Subjects

• To understand the developmental change that has brought about the gnathostome jaw, or origin of gnathostomes
• To understand the conprehensive developmental patterns and mechanisms of hagfish
• To understand the developmental changes brought into the body plan and its developmental program in the amniote ancestor to generate the turtle carapace
• To understand the mechanical background behind the basic patterning of the mandibular arch, including the developmental understanding of the evolution of mammalian ear ossicles.

Publications

1. Oisi, Y., Ota, K. G., Fujimoto, S. and Kuratani, S.
   "Craniofacial development of hagfishes and the evolution of vertebrates."
   Nature 493, 175-180(2013)
2. Ota, K. G., Fujimoto, S., Oisi, Y., and Kuratani, S.
   "Identification of vertebra-like elements and their possible differentiation from sclerotomes in the hagfish. "
   Nat. Commun. 2, 373(2011)
3. Irie, N., and Kuratani, S.
   "Comparative transcriptome analysis detects vertebrate phylotypic stage during organogenesis."
   Nat. Commun. 2, 248(2011)
4. Nagashima, H., Sugahara, F., Takechi, M., Ericsson, R., Ohya, K. Y., Narita, Y., and Kuratani, S.
   "Evolution of the turtle body plan by the folding and creation of new muscle connections."
   Science 325 , 193-196(2009)
5. Kuraku, S., Takio, Y., Tamura, K., Aono, H., Meyer, A., and Kuratani, S.
   "Non-canonical role of Hox14 revealed by its expression pattern in lamprey and shark."
   Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 105, 6679-6683(2008)
6. Nagashima, H., Kuraku, S., Uchida, K., Ohya, Y. K.,and Kuratani, S.
   "On the carapacial ridge in turtle embryos: its developmental origin, function, and the chelonian body plan."
   Development 134 2219-2226 (2007)
7. Ota, G.,K., Kuraku, S. and Kuratani, S.
   "Hagfish embryology with reference to the evolution of the neural crest."
   Nature 446, 672-675 2007
8. Kuraku, S., Usuda, R., Kuratani, S.,
   "Comprehensive survey of carapacial ridge-specific genes in turtle implies co-option of some regulatory genes in carapace evolution"
   EVOLUTION & DEVELOPMENT 7:1, 3-17, (2005)
9. Takio, Y., Pasqualetti, M., Kuraku, S., Hirano, S., Rijli, F. M., Kuratani, S.
   "Lamprey Hox genes and the evolution of jaws"
   Nature 20 May 2004
10. Shigetani, Y., Sugahara, F., Kawakami, Y., Murakami, Y., Hirano, S., Kuratani, S.
    "Heterotopic Shift of Epithelial-Mesenchymal Interactions in Vertebrate Jaw Evolution."
    Science 296 , 1316-1319 (2002)