title: Gene duplications in early metazoan evolution.
abstract: Major increases in complexity during animal evolution occurred at the transition from a unicellular protozoan to a multicellular metazoan, the evolution of Bilateria from diploblasts (possibly the Cambrian explosion) and during early vertebrate evolution. A role for gene duplication in the third event has been widely discussed. Here I examine the possible role of gene duplications and domain shuffling in the first two events. There is evidence for a wave of gene duplications and shuffling which may have paved the way for multicellularity; there are also examples of gene duplications that may have facilitated the transition from diploblasts to Bilateria.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Biochemistry and Microbiology, BMC, Uppsala, Sweden. lg.lundin@medkem.uu.se
authors.forename: L G
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Lundin
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002816:Chordata, Nonvertebrate / Q000235:genetics; D003094:Collagen / Q000235:genetics; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D020440:Gene Duplication; D016678:Genome; D018398:Homeodomain Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D010802:Phylogeny; D018160:Receptors, Cytoplasmic and Nuclear / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D018398:Homeodomain Proteins; D018160:Receptors, Cytoplasmic and Nuclear; D003094:Collagen