Humans Came From Sponges? Genes Linked To 700 Million-Year-Old Sea Sponges

Sea sponges, organisms with bodies full of pores that allow water to circulate through them, have dominated life on Earth since before dinosaurs. A new research now suggests that possibly the entire animal kingdom, including humans, shares important genetic mechanisms with sea sponges.

Now published in the journal Science, the discovery has been made by a team of scientists led by Dr Emily Wong from the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute and UNSW Sydney.

Sea Sponge (Representative Image: MIT)

The scientists found that some elements of the human genome - the complete set of DNA of an organism - are functioning in the same way as the prehistoric sea sponge.

The breakthrough has an incredible implication that the genome has been preserved ¡°across 700 million years of evolution,¡± explains a release by the university. The study will help as a solid foundation for further research on species diversity and genetic behaviour.

¡°This is a fundamental discovery in evolution and the understanding of genetic diseases, which we never imagined was possible,¡± explains Dr Wong. ¡°What we found is despite a lack of similarity between the sponge and humans due to millions of years of evolution, we identified a similar set of genomic instructions that controls gene expression in both organisms. We were blown away by the results!¡± she added.

The genome link

Dr Chang explains how the team was able to come to the finding. ¡°We collected sea sponge samples from the Great Barrier Reef, near Heron Island. At the University of Queensland, we extracted DNA samples from the sea sponge and injected it into a single cell from a zebrafish embryo.¡±

¡°Without harming the zebrafish,¡± the team then repeated the process with hundreds of embryos, inserting small DNA samples from humans and mice, at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute.

(Representative Image: Reuters)

For the study, the team focused on an ¡°ancient gene,¡± important in the human nervous system and also critical for heart development, explains Associate Professor Mathias Francois, co-senior author on the paper and Dr Wong¡¯s husband. The findings will drive biomedical research and future healthcare benefits, he added.

¡°We are still a long way from a clear understanding of how DNA precisely shapes morphology in health and disease but our work is an important step in that direction,¡± said Dr Wong.