Amphioxus functional genomics and the origins of vertebrate gene regulation

This long-awaited study was published in Nature this week. As a part of a large international consortium, we generated a functional genomics resource for amphioxus (B. lanceolatum) comprising 96 datasets of RNA-seq, MethylC-seq, RRBS, CAGE-seq, ChIP-seq and ATAC-seq. Amphioxus (also known as “the lancelet”), is an invertebrate chordate that can help us resolve some of the earliest steps of vertebrate evolution. We uncovered that DNA methylation is removed from Amphioxus enhancers in a similar fashion as previously described in vertebrates. More about the study can be found at here.