The stem cell system is one of the unique systems that have evolved only in multicellular
organisms. Major questions about this system include what type (s) of stem cells are …

Sponges are considered the oldest living animal group and provide important insights into
the earliest evolutionary processes in the Metazoa. This paper reviews the evidence that …

A key focus of evolutionary developmental biology (evo–devo) in recent years has been to
elucidate the evolution of developmental mechanisms as a means of reconstructing the …

Unraveling animal life cycles and embryonic development is basic to understanding animal
biology and often sheds light on phylogenetic relationships. A key group for understanding …

We propose two major evolutionary origins of stem cell systems in the animal kingdom. Adult
pluripotent stem cell systems are found in many invertebrates and probably evolved as …

The non-bilaterian animals comprise organisms in the phyla Porifera, Cnidaria, Ctenophora
and Placozoa. These early-diverging phyla are pivotal to understanding the evolution of …

This study presents a comprehensive taxonomic revision of the family Suberitidae (Porifera:
Demospongiae) for California, USA. We include the three species previously known from the …

Background Laccases are copper-containing enzymes that catalyze the oxidation of a wide
variety of phenolic substrates. Methods We describe the first poriferan laccase from the …

Recently, it was shown that the majority of genes linked to human diseases, such as cancer
genes, evolved in two major evolutionary transitions—the emergence of unicellular …

The Wnt signal acts by binding to Frizzled receptors, with the subsequent activation of two
different signal transduction cascades, the canonical and the non‐canonical Wnt pathways …