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OTTAWA, June 24, 2010  —  A collaborative scientific study between a group of Ottawa researchers and international colleagues has uncovered genes that may play a role in one of evolution’s big steps: how fins evolved into limbs. The study was published yesterday in one of the world’s most prestigious scientific journals, Nature.

Titled Loss of fish actinotrichia proteins and the fin-to-limb transition, the article draws from a study led by University of Ottawa biology professor Marie-Andrée Akimenko on a newly discovered gene family that allows fish to develop actinotrichia — the small fibrils in the fish’s fin fold and that are absent in tetrapod limbs (mammals, birds, amphibians,etc.).

By experimentally preventing the expression of these genes, the researchers observed a loss of the fish-specific fibrils, which led to little or no development of a fin fold. The disappearance of these genes in tetrapods during evolution may have been one step in the transformation of fins into limbs, suggest the authors.

The collaborative study involved five Canadian researchers, including four from the University of Ottawa’s Centre for Advanced Research in Environmental Genomics (CAREG) and a Health Canada scientist, and three international researchers, from England, Germany and Singapore.

The University of Ottawa is committed to research excellence and encourages an interdisciplinary approach to knowledge creation, which attracts the best academic talent from across Canada and around the world.