Detecting worms with relatives

Researchers have suddenly discovered a creature that is a long-lost relative of mankind: the pink cave worm - marine animals that have up to 70% of the human genome.

Worms have a human-like genome

Scientists believe that the human-to-invertebrate relationship can be formed from the Camri-era boom, a climax in evolutionary diversity that occurred some 550 million years ago. . This stage is said to change life on Earth permanently, because complex animals with specialized gut and behavioral characteristics begin to appear.

Cave worms reside in the seabed and eat by filtering seawater through gaps that play the same role as fish gills. These body openings mark a key innovation in evolution, not appearing in animals like flies and earthworms.

Pink cave worms.

Because the earthworm occupies a "critical evolutionary position" for humans , researchers from the Okinawa University of Science and Technology (OIST) have conducted sequencing of both species. The team collected individuals from the two subspecies of the Ptychodera flava in Hawaii and Saccoglossus kowalevskii in the Atlantic Ocean.

The study found that secondary mouth animals - a large group of different organisms, from cavernous to starfish, from toad to dogs, and even humans, share 8,600 gene families, ie equivalent to having about 14,000 identical genes. This means that nearly 70% of our genes originate from the ancestors of mouth animals, sinus , organisms that exist on Earth about 500 million years ago and are extinct.

A group of genes conserved for more than half a billion years is thought to be involved in the development of pharynx - the joint between the nasal cavity and the mouth and throat, in both the worms and vertebrates. Although this gene group appears in both the worms and humans, they do not exist in insects, octopus, earthworms and flukes.

"These findings fill our understanding of the genes found in the common ancestor of all secondary mouth animals. Analysis of the genome of the nematode worm revealed the complexity of their ancestors. we in Camri and provide evidence of the ancient relationship between the development of the oropharynx and the way of living through the filter basically contributed to our evolution, "said Dr. Oleg Simakov, who Head of research emphasizes.