microRNAs reveal lamprey and hagfish monophyly

摘要

Researchers have compared hagfish and lampreys, the only living jawless vertebrates, with jawed vertebrates (gnathostomes) to gain insight into the body plan of the ancestral vertebrate. But, whereas molecular analyses indicate that lampreys and hagfish constitute a clade, referred to as Cyclostomata, morphological analyses suggest that lampreys are the closest relative of jawed vertebrates. Alysha Heimberg et al. (pp. 19379-19383) coupled deep sequencing of small RNA libraries with genomic surveying, and demonstrate that lampreys and hagfish are closest relatives to each other, based on shared similarities in their microRNA.