A coordinated morphogenetic program drives rapid body plan transformation in a sponge

Abstract

Across the animal kingdom, metamorphosis transforms a free-swimming larva into a morphologically distinct juvenile, yet how conserved cellular processes are spatiotemporally coordinated to execute this rapid body plan switch remains poorly understood. Using the marine sponge Amphimedon queenslandica -- a member of one of the earliest-diverging animal phyletic lineages -- we characterise the cellular and morphogenetic events of the first six hours of metamorphosis. We show that metamorphosis proceeds through a tightly ordered sequence of events orchestrated by a stereotypic wave of epithelial infoldings that propagates from the basal to the apical pole within the first hour post-settlement. This wave acts as a morphogenetic pacemaker, spatially and temporally inducing subsequent cellular transitions, which include coordinated mucus secretion, cilia resorption, epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), mesenchymal-epithelial transition (MET), transdifferentiation and targeted programmed cell death. Lineage tracing further reveals the stepwise transformation of larval cells at metamorphosis, with labelled epithelial flask cells transdifferentiating into internal archaeocyte stem cells via a transitory amoeboid cell state associated with EMT. These findings demonstrate that rapid metamorphosis comprises a spatially pre-patterned, stepwise program, and provide a cellular framework for understanding body plan transformations with broad implications for the evolution of metazoan metamorphosis.