A Fishy Tale of Two Sequenced Vertebrate Genomes: Lamprey and Coelacanth

Genome assemblies and their annotations have recently been published for two vastly different fish species: the sea lamprey, a jawless fish, and the coelacanth, a lobe-finned fish. These two represent opposite ends of the spectrum with respect to what we call "fishes," and they are phylogenetically separated from each other by some 500 million years. These two taxa represent major departure points in vertebrate evolution and are important for addressing key evolutionary questions. For the lamprey: What does a primitive vertebrate genome consist of? Whereas for the coelacanth: What are the antecedents of genes and regulatory elements prior to the emergence of the tetrapods?  Genome annotations using MAKER were extremely useful for addressing these questions.  We will further discuss key findings of the respective genomes as well as important biological questions addressable now that these genomes are available.