The Clytia genome reveals the origins of the jellyfish

Research teams from the Villefranche-sur-Mer Developmental Biology Laboratory (jointly managed by Sorbonne University and CNRS), in collaboration with the Biological Institute Paris-Seine (Sorbonne University), CEA-Genoscope and the University of Vienna have decoded the genome of the jellyfish Clytia. Their study some of which are also present in humans, and questions the evolutionary origin of this cnidarian that appeared more than 500 million years. Most people associate jellyfish with rather unpleasant and painful encounters at the beach. The Australian "sea wasp" box jellyfish is among the most toxic animals on the planet. Jellyfish, as well as corals, sea anemones and the freshwater polyp hydra belong to the cnidarians, a very old lineage of stinging animals. Jellyfish, however, are not all dangerous: most of those of the hydrozoan group are less than a few centimeters and harmless to man. They include the common species Clytia hemisphaerica, whose genome has been decoded by researchers from the Developmental Biology Laboratory of Villefranche-sur-Mer in collaboration with the Genoscope, a team of the IBPS (Sorbonne University) and the University of Vienna.