Exploring multicellular developmental diversity at the root of animals & beyond

Date

Sep 25, 2025

Time

11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Speaker

Omaya Dudin

Affiliation

University of Geneva, Switzerland

Series

MPI-CBG Thursday Seminar

Language

en

Main Topic

Biologie

Host

Pavel Tomancak

Description

All animals develop from a single-celled zygote and undergo complex morphogenetic processes to form multicellular organisms. These processes are regulated by intrinsic and extrinsic factors that drive key developmental events, such as symmetry breaking, cell division, and differentiation. Despite the remarkable conservation of these pathways across species, the evolutionary origins of these morphogenetic mechanisms remain unclear. A major challenge in addressing this question is the limited availability of microscopy and cell biological data from key protists that occupy pivotal phylogenetic positions in the eukaryotic tree, including those identified as the closest unicellular relatives of animals. In this talk, I will show how close animal relatives such as Ichthyosporeans display strikingly diverse developmental strategies, from coenocytic growth with cellularization to cleavage-based colony formation. These systems provide unique opportunities to probe how cells coordinate in space, establish polarity, and differentiate, posing critical questions about the evolutionary transition to multicellularity. Finally, I will outline how we aim to move beyond animal origins by implementing, optimizing, and developing Expansion Microscopy (ExM) to study a broader diversity of microbial eukaryotes. This approach allows us to uncover the diversity of cellular forms, cytoskeletal architectures, and life cycles across lineages, providing new perspectives on how distinct multicellular developmental programs emerge. Our long-term goal is to establish an Expansion Microscopy Atlas of Microbial Eukaryotes, creating a framework to identify general principles of multicellular transitions across eukaryotic life.

Last modified: Sep 25, 2025, 7:39:34 AM