Nautilus genome sequencing analysis reveals the mechanism of pinhole formation and biomineralization

Recently, the Chinese Kexue Yuan South China Sea Institute of Tropical Marine Living Resources and Key Laboratory of Eco Yu Ziniu team for the first time in the world to complete a nautilus whole-genome sequencing, revealing the evolution of the law of this ancient mollusks, pinhole eye formation and biological Mineralization mechanism.

Nautilus is the oldest and lowest cephalopod in existence, mainly distributed in the tropical and subtropical waters of the Western Pacific-Indian Ocean.

The team sequenced the genome of the most widely distributed pearl nautilus (Nautilus pompilius).

Figure 1 Nautilus genome structure and evolutionary relationship.

"Shell internalization" is an important revolutionary event in the evolution of cephalopods, and Nautilus is the only existing cephalopod with a shell, providing evolutionary materials for analyzing the origin of mollusk shell formation.

Figure 2 Molecular model of Nautilus vision.

Researcher Zhang Yang and Assistant Researcher Mao Fan of the South China Sea Institute of Oceanography are the co-first authors of this article, and researcher Yu Ziniu is the corresponding author of this article.

Related paper information: org/10.