What Does the Assembly of the Coelacanth Genome Say About Evolution?

 

The endangered African coelacanth resembles ancient marine ancestors leading it to be valuable in research done to see how land vertebrates' fish first climbed out of the ocean. In an article reported by LA Times this weird-looking fish's genome was published to hopefully give answers to scientists' questions such as how fins became limbs or how animals developed placentas. A draft of the coelacanth's genome was published in the journal Nature showing 2.86 billion DNA letter pairs to make the genetic blueprint of this creature.

The researchers that worked on the genome discussed that the assembly of this genome was not an easy task. The coelacanth went unnoticed for sometime until 1938. Not long after it's discovery, scientists and researchers began to ponder how it could be related to those fish that eventually adapted to the land. They found in their study that our ancestors looked alot like the coelacanths from viewing and comparing the ancient fossils to this fish. Insight into the evolutionary family tree was thought by the scientists to stem from how the coelacanths genes related to other vertebrates' DNA.

Several discoveries were noted in the original study the revealed the creature's genome. They initially compared the coelacanth's DNA with that of other sea and land vertebrates allowing them to find that that the coelacanths evolved at a slower pace than other animals. What was confirmed is that a lungfish is more related to tetrapods rather than coelacanths. For the ability of DNA to sequence to smell, immunity and limb development, the scientists discovered the genetic differences that allowed for the transition for coelacanths to vertebrates on land. In the future, the coelacanth's genome will be used to help better understand how we evolved even though the lungfish may be a closer relative to vertebrates on land.