More than a thousand species of sea anemones are known , aquatic organisms equipped with poisonous tentacles (through cells called cnidocytes they can inject paralyzing neurotoxins) that usually attach themselves to rocky bottoms.
These polyps, capable of reaching two meters in diameter, take their name from a genus of plants, and, in fact, because of their appearance and color, they are often called sea flowers.
Now, a team of researchers from the University of Vienna coordinated by Michaela Schwaiger, from the Department of Molecular Development and Evolution of this institution, has announced that their relationship with the plant world goes beyond their physical resemblance .
And, according to these experts in the Genome Research journal, they could be considered part animal and part plant, at least from a genetic point of view . Thus, in their essay, they highlight that although their genes and their interactions are more similar to those of animals, the code that determines how they are expressed is more similar to that of plants.
“Given that anemones exhibit a complex genomic landscape , with regulatory elements similar to those of the fruit fly, for example, we believe that this was already present in a hypothetical common ancestor to these marine creatures, insects and even humans, about 600 million years ago, ”says Schwaiger.
These actinias have a fairly simple anatomical configuration, but underneath it is a complex network of genetic relationships, not very different from that found in higher animals.
However, they have a second level of gene regulation in which a micro RNA is present, a ribonucleic acid that regulates the expression of certain genes and that acts differently in animals and plants, which has similarities with that of both. This suggests that this micro RNA evolved a long time ago, before one and the other diverged.
