The seahorse genome and the evolution of its specialized morphology

• DOI: 10.1038/nature20595
• Publication Date: 2016-12-13T17:22:18Z
• Authors: Qiang Lin; Shaohua Fan; Yanhong Zhang; Meng Xu; Huixian Zhang; Yulan Yang; Alison P. Lee; Joost M. Woltering; Vydianathan Ravi; Helen M. Gunter; Wei Luo; Zexia Gao; Zhi Wei Lim; Geng Qin; Ralf F. Schneider; Xin Wang; Peiwen Xiong; Gang Li; Kai Wang; Jiumeng Min; Chi Zhang; Ying Qiu; Jie Bai; Weiming He; Chao Bian; Xinhui Zhang; Dai Shan; Hongyue Qu; Ying Sun; Qiang Gao; Liangmin Huang; Qiong Shi; Axel Meyer; Byrappa Venkatesh
• Keywords: Seahorse; Morphology

Seahorses have a specialized morphology that includes toothless tubular mouth, body covered with bony plates, male brood pouch, and the absence of caudal pelvic fins. Here we report sequencing de novo assembly genome tiger tail seahorse, Hippocampus comes. Comparative genomic analysis identifies higher protein nucleotide evolutionary rates in H. comes compared other teleost fish genomes. We identified an astacin metalloprotease gene family has undergone expansion is highly expressed pouch. also find lacks enamel matrix protein-coding proline/glutamine-rich secretory calcium-binding phosphoprotein genes, which might led to loss mineralized teeth. tbx4, regulator hindlimb development, not found genome. Knockout tbx4 zebrafish showed 'pelvic fin-loss' phenotype similar seahorses.