THE AMAZING GENETIC NATURE OF THE SEA ANEMONE

Sea anemones genomic landscape show strikingly similar to human genome , but also hold regulatory mechanisms similar to those of plants. Thus it has been shown in a detailed genetic analysis.

The team Ulrich Technau , evolutionary and development at the University of Vienna in Austria biologist has discovered that sea anemones show genomic landscape with a complexity of regulatory elements similar to that of the fruit fly and many other animals . This suggests that this principle of gene regulation has no less than 600 million years and goes back to the common ancestor of humans , flies and sea anemones. Furthermore, sea anemones are more like plants and insects to vertebrates in the regulation of gene expression through short regulatory RNAs called microRNAs .

While genes are , in a sense, the words of the language of genetics , certain regulatory elements would constitute the grammar. These regulatory elements are correlated with certain biochemical epigenetic modifications of histone proteins that make up reels like structures in which DNA is wound , forming chromatin .

With the help of a sophisticated molecular technique, the research team has managed to identify regulatory elements of that type checking for this purpose the complete genome of the sea anemone, and compare data sets with regulatory elements and configurations in most organisms complex. 

Since it seems that this principle of complex gene regulation was already present, as has been said, 600 million years ago when the common ancestor of living humans, flies and sea anemones, it is clear that the regulatory principle is very important for life, as well as to have been maintained by evolution over such a long period of time.