ABSTRACT

Vertebrates possess lineage-specific characteristics. These include paired anterior sense organs and a robust, modular head skeleton built of cellular cartilage and bone. All of these structures are derived, at least partly, from an embryonic tissue unique vertebrates - the neural crest. The evolutionary history of the neural crest, and neural crest cells, has been difficult to reconstruct. This volume will use a comparative approach to survey the development of the neural crest in vertebrates, and neural crest-like cells, across the metazoa. This information will be used to reveal neural crest evolution and identify the genomic, genetic, and gene-regulatory changes that drove them.

Key selling features:

Summarizes the data regarding neural crest cells and nerural crest derivatives

Uses a broad-based comparative approach

Suggests hypothesis that the origin of neural crest cells involved the novel co-activation of ancient metazoan gene programs in neural border cells

Illustrates how the emergences of neural crest made possible the diversification of vertebrate heads

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

Editors ……………………………………………………………………………………………..vii

Contributors...........................................................................................................................ix

Introduction: Tribute to the Neural Crest …………………………………………………… 1

Marianne Bronner

Chapter 1 The Neural Crest, A Vertebrate Invention ……………………………………………… 5

Mansour Alkobtawi and Anne H. Monsoro-Burq

Chapter 2 The Evolution of Cellular EMT and Migration ……………………………………..… 67

Joshua R. York, Kevin Zehnder, and David W. McCauley

Chapter 3 The Evolution of the Neural Border and Peripheral

Nervous System—Insights from Invertebrate Deuterostome Animals …………………………… 103

Jr-Kai Yu and Yi-Hsien Su

Chapter 4 The Hunt for Neural Crest in Invertebrate Chordates …………………………………... 137

Philip B. Abitua

Chapter 5 Elaboration of Fates in Neural Crest Lineage during Evolution ….…………………… 157

Igor Adameyko

Chapter 6 On the Evolution of Skeletal Cells before and after Neural Crest ……………….…… 185

Brian F. Eames, Patsy Gomez-Picos, and David Jandzik

Chapter 7 Neural Crest and Craniofacial Evolution of Early Vertebrates ………………………… 219

Shigeru Kuratani

Chapter 8 Neural Crest in Fossil Vertebrates: What, If Anything, Can We Know? …………….. 243

Per Erik Ahlberg and Tatjana Haitina

Chapter 9 Evolving Neural Crest Cells: Hopes for Present and Future Understanding ………… 265

Igor Adameyko and Brian F. Eames

Index …………………………………………………….……………………………………….......………. 275