title: The seahorse genome and the evolution of its specialized morphology.
abstract: Seahorses have a specialized morphology that includes a toothless tubular mouth, a body covered with bony plates, a male brood pouch, and the absence of caudal and pelvic fins. Here we report the sequencing and de novo assembly of the genome of the tiger tail seahorse, Hippocampus comes. Comparative genomic analysis identifies higher protein and nucleotide evolutionary rates in H. comes compared with other teleost fish genomes. We identified an astacin metalloprotease gene family that has undergone expansion and is highly expressed in the male brood pouch. We also find that the H. comes genome lacks enamel matrix protein-coding proline/glutamine-rich secretory calcium-binding phosphoprotein genes, which might have led to the loss of mineralized teeth. tbx4, a regulator of hindlimb development, is also not found in H. comes genome. Knockout of tbx4 in zebrafish showed a 'pelvic fin-loss' phenotype similar to that of seahorses.
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Marine Bio-resources and Ecology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510301, China.
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Chair in Zoology and Evolutionary Biology, Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz 78457, Germany.
authors.forename: Shaohua
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Marine Bio-resources and Ecology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510301, China.
authors.forename: Yanhong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China.
authors.forename: Meng
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Marine Bio-resources and Ecology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510301, China.|Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, A*STAR, Biopolis, Singapore 138673, Singapore.
authors.forename: Huixian
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China.
authors.forename: Yulan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, A*STAR, Biopolis, Singapore 138673, Singapore.
authors.forename: Alison P
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Chair in Zoology and Evolutionary Biology, Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz 78457, Germany.
authors.forename: Joost M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Woltering
authors.affiliation: Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, A*STAR, Biopolis, Singapore 138673, Singapore.
authors.forename: Vydianathan
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Ravi
authors.affiliation: Chair in Zoology and Evolutionary Biology, Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz 78457, Germany.
authors.forename: Helen M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Gunter
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Marine Bio-resources and Ecology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510301, China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: College of Fisheries, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China.
authors.forename: Zexia
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, A*STAR, Biopolis, Singapore 138673, Singapore.
authors.forename: Zhi Wei
authors.initials: ZW
authors.lastname: Lim
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Marine Bio-resources and Ecology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510301, China.|University of Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100049, China.
authors.forename: Geng
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Qin
authors.affiliation: Chair in Zoology and Evolutionary Biology, Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz 78457, Germany.
authors.forename: Ralf F
authors.initials: RF
authors.lastname: Schneider
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Marine Bio-resources and Ecology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510301, China.|University of Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100049, China.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Chair in Zoology and Evolutionary Biology, Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz 78457, Germany.
authors.forename: Peiwen
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Xiong
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Marine Bio-resources and Ecology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510301, China.
authors.forename: Gang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: School of Agriculture, Ludong University, Yantai 264025, China.
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China.
authors.forename: Jiumeng
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Min
authors.affiliation: BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China.
authors.forename: Chi
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Shenzhen Key Lab of Marine Genomics, Guangdong Provincial Key Lab of Molecular Breeding in Marine Economic Animals, BGI, Shenzhen 518083, China.
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Qiu
authors.affiliation: Shenzhen Key Lab of Marine Genomics, Guangdong Provincial Key Lab of Molecular Breeding in Marine Economic Animals, BGI, Shenzhen 518083, China.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bai
authors.affiliation: BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China.
authors.forename: Weiming
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: Shenzhen Key Lab of Marine Genomics, Guangdong Provincial Key Lab of Molecular Breeding in Marine Economic Animals, BGI, Shenzhen 518083, China.
authors.forename: Chao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bian
authors.affiliation: Shenzhen Key Lab of Marine Genomics, Guangdong Provincial Key Lab of Molecular Breeding in Marine Economic Animals, BGI, Shenzhen 518083, China.
authors.forename: Xinhui
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China.
authors.forename: Dai
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Shan
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Marine Bio-resources and Ecology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510301, China.|University of Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100049, China.
authors.forename: Hongyue
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Qu
authors.affiliation: Shenzhen Key Lab of Marine Genomics, Guangdong Provincial Key Lab of Molecular Breeding in Marine Economic Animals, BGI, Shenzhen 518083, China.
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China.
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Marine Bio-resources and Ecology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510301, China.|University of Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100049, China.
authors.forename: Liangmin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Marine Bio-resources and Ecology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510301, China.|Shenzhen Key Lab of Marine Genomics, Guangdong Provincial Key Lab of Molecular Breeding in Marine Economic Animals, BGI, Shenzhen 518083, China.
authors.forename: Qiong
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.affiliation: Chair in Zoology and Evolutionary Biology, Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz 78457, Germany.
authors.forename: Axel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.affiliation: Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, A*STAR, Biopolis, Singapore 138673, Singapore.|Department of Paediatrics, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore 119228, Singapore.
authors.forename: Byrappa
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Venkatesh
mesh_terms: D058500:Animal Fins / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000378:metabolism; D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D017124:Conserved Sequence / Q000235:genetics; D029941:Fish Proteins / Q000172:deficiency / Q000235:genetics*; D017353:Gene Deletion; D016678:Genome / Q000235:genetics*; D023281:Genomics; D006614:Hindlimb / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000378:metabolism; D008297:Male; D058977:Molecular Sequence Annotation; D005810:Multigene Family / Q000235:genetics; D059645:Mutation Rate; D010802:Phylogeny; D012098:Reproduction / Q000502:physiology; D023701:Smegmamorpha / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000235:genetics*; D020825:T-Box Domain Proteins / Q000172:deficiency / Q000235:genetics; D013997:Time Factors; D029961:Zebrafish Proteins / Q000172:deficiency / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D029941:Fish Proteins; D020825:T-Box Domain Proteins; D029961:Zebrafish Proteins; C491194:tbx4 protein, zebrafish