Christopher Lowe

Christopher Lowe, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy
Committee on Neurobiology

Nervous system evolution and the early origins of the vertebrate brain

My research interests are in the field of evolution and development, and more specifically the evolution of the deuterostome nervous systems. This major metazoan lineage is made up of three major groups; chordates, echinoderms, hemichordates. The early evolutionary history of the deuterostomes and the origins of the chordate nervous system remain poorly understood. We work on hemichordates, a phylum closely related to chordates, in order to unravel some of the early events during deuterostome nervous system evolution. We have established extensive similarities in the expression and function of conserved transcription factors and signaling molecules between vertebrates and hemichordates, during the development of the anteroposterior and dorsoventral axes. These studies have revealed unprecedented similarities in the molecular genetic control of the development of the hemichordate nerve net and vertebrate central nervous system, despite their substantial organizational and morphological disparity. Using this approach, we have gained insights the molecular genetic components already assembled in the deuterostome ancestor that were likely important for the evolution of the chordate brain and central nervous system. More generally our work is giving insights into how even highly conservative genetic regulatory architecture between phyla does not constrain the evolutionary possibilities of specific neural anatomies, and can be misleading when used to reconstruct the ancestral structural elements of distantly related taxa

For more information on Evolution and Development at the University of Chicago go to http://www.ucevodevo.org.

References

Lowe C. J., Terasaki M., Wu, M., Freeman, R.M. Jr., Runft, L., Kwan, K., Haigo, S., Aronowicz, J., Lander E., Gruber, C., Smith, M., Kirschner, M., Gerhart, J. (2006) Dorsoventral patterning in hemichordates: insights into early chordate evolution. PLoS Biology. In Press

Lowe C. J. Origins of the chordate central nervous system: insights from hemichordates. Evolution of Nervous Systems (2006) Volume 3 Evolution of Nervous Systems in Non-Mammalian Vertebra. Eds T. Bullock. Elsevier. In Press.

Chaetognath phylogenomics: a protostome with deuterostome-like development (2006). Marletaz F, Martin E, Perez Y, Papillon D, Caubit X, Lowe CJ, Freeman B, Fasano L,Dossat C, Wincker P, Weissenbach J, Le Parco Y. Curr Biol. Aug 8;16(15):R577-8.

Gerhart, J. Lowe, CJ., Kirschner M. Hemichordates and origin of chordates (2005). Curr Opin Genet Dev. 15(4):461-7.

Lowe, C. J., Tagawa, K., Humphreys, T., Kirschner, M. and Gerhart, J. (2004). Hemichordate embryos: procurement, culture, and basic methods. Methods Cell Biol 74, 171-94.

Lowe, C. J., Wu, M., Salic, A., Evans, L., Lander, E., Stange-Thomann, N., Gruber, C. E., Gerhart, J. and Kirschner, M. (2003). Anteroposterior patterning in hemichordates and the origins of the chordate nervous system. Cell 113, 853-65.

Lowe, C. J., Issel-Tarver, L. and Wray, G. A. (2002). Gene expression and larval evolution: changing roles of distal-less and orthodenticle in echinoderm larvae. Evol Dev 4, 111-23.

Lowe, C. J. and Wray, G. A. (1997). Radical alterations in the roles of homeobox genes during echinoderm evolution. Nature 389, 718-21.

Last updated 08/08/06