Substantial hierarchical reductions of genetic and morphological traits in the evolution of rotiferan parasites

O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=189 SRC="FIGDIR/small/605096v2_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (30K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@469ecborg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@6330f4org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@22faf6org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@8a6704_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG O_FLOATNOGraphical abstractC_FLOATNO C_FIG During the last 800 million years of evolution animals radiated into a vast range of diversity of species and disparity of forms and lifestyles. The process involved a near hierarchical increase in complexity from life forms with few cell types to organisms with many hundreds of cell-types. However, neither genome size nor number of protein-coding genes can explain these differences and their biological basis remains elusive. Yet, recent studies have suggested that the evolution of complexity is closely linked to the acquisition of a class of protein coding gene-regulators called microRNAs. In a regressive approach, to investigate the association between loss of organismal complexity and microRNAs, we here studied Syndermata, an invertebrate group including free-living rotifers (Monogononta, Bdelloidea), the epibiotic Seisonidea and the endoparasitic Acanthocephala. Genomic, transcriptomic and morphological characterization and comparisons across 25 syndermatan species revealed a strong correlation between loss of microRNAs, loss of protein-coding genes and decreasing morphological complexity. The near hierarchical loss extends to [~]85% loss of microRNAs and a [~]50% loss of BUSCO genes in the endoparasitic Acanthocephala, the most reduced group we studied. Together, the loss of [~]400 protein-coding genes and [~]10 metazoan core gene losses went along with one microRNA family loss. Furthermore, the loss of [~]4 microRNA families or [~]34 metazoan core genes associated with one lost morphological feature. These are the first quantitative insights into the regulatory impact of microRNAs on organismic complexity as a predictable consequence in regressive evolution of parasites.