A cross-vertebrate single-cell and spatial atlas reveals evolutionary trajectories of gastrointestinal cellular innovation.

A single-cell and spatial transcriptomic atlas across 10 vertebrate species reveals that cellular evolution in the gastrointestinal system is driven by gene repurposing and de novo gene emergence over 500 million years.

• Why it matters: Understanding the cellular innovations behind vertebrate gastrointestinal diversification fills a major knowledge gap in evolutionary biology and organ function.
• What they did: Researchers constructed an atlas of nearly 1 million cells using single-cell and spatial transcriptomics from 10 species, analyzing conserved gene modules and lineage-specific cellular changes.
• The result: The study shows that gene module remodeling correlates with key lineage-specific events, such as ciliated cell loss and tuft cell emergence, and uncovers immune and functional precursors in lungfish and fish oxynticopeptic cells, informing evolutionary trajectories.