Dans cette étude internationale publiée dans la prestigieuse revue Nature Communications, les chercheurs de l’équipe BBC, Eglantine Heude et sa doctorante Frida Sanchez-Garrido ont étudié l’origine évolutive des composants du cou des vertébrés et leur l’importance dans la conquête du milieu terrestre.

Co-option of neck muscles supported the vertebrate water-to-land transition

 

Affiliations

  • 1 Institut de Génomique Fonctionnelle de Lyon, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, CNRS UMR5242 Université Claude Bernard Lyon-1, Lyon, France. eglantine.heude@cnrs.fr.
  • 2 PHYMA, Département Adaptations du Vivant, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, CNRS UMR 7221, Paris, France. eglantine.heude@cnrs.fr.
  • 3 Bristol Palaeobiology Research Group, School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK.
  • 4 Université de Bordeaux, CNRS, MCC, PACEA, UMR 5199, Pessac, France.
  • 5 Craniofacial Growth and Form, Hôpital Necker - Enfants Malades, Paris, France.
  • 6 PHYMA, Département Adaptations du Vivant, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, CNRS UMR 7221, Paris, France.
  • 7 Department of Molecular Life Sciences, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
  • 8 Department of Pediatrics, Section of Developmental Biology, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO, USA.
  • 9 Molecular Systems Biology Unit, European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Heidelberg, Germany.
  • 10 Yale University, New Haven, USA.
  • 11 Core Facilities - Institut de Biologie Paris Seine (IBPS), Sorbonne Universités, Paris, France.
  • 12 MECADEV, Département Adaptations du Vivant, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, CNRS UMR 7179, Paris, France.
  • 13 Department of Biology, Evolutionary Morphology of Vertebrates, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
  • 14 Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, Wilrijk, Belgium.
  • 15 Naturhistorisches Museum Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
  • 16 Department of Developmental & Stem Cell Biology, Stem Cells & Development Unit, Institut Pasteur, Université Paris Cité, Paris, France.
  • 17 CNRS UMR3738, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France.

Abstract

A major event in vertebrate evolution was the separation of the skull from the pectoral girdle and the acquisition of a functional neck, transitions that required profound developmental rearrangements of the musculoskeletal system. The neck is a hallmark of the tetrapod body plan and allows for complex head movements on land. While head and trunk muscles arise from distinct embryonic mesoderm populations, the origins of neck muscles remain elusive. Here, we combine comparative embryology and anatomy to reconstruct the mesodermal contribution to neck evolution. We demonstrate that head/trunk-connecting muscle groups have conserved mesodermal origins in fishes and tetrapods and that the neck evolved from muscle groups present in fishes. We propose that expansions of mesodermal populations into head and trunk domains during embryonic development underpinned the emergence and adaptation of the tetrapod neck. Our results provide evidence for the exaptation of archetypal muscle groups in ancestral fishes, which were co-opted to acquire novel functions adapted to a terrestrial lifestyle.

Published on: 10/12/2024 13:48 - Updated on: 10/12/2024 13:48