paper out: MicroRNA innovation is strongly linked to animal complexity

How do genomes produce the extraordinary diversity of animal life? A new MIRevolution study in The American Naturalist explores this question by comparing regulatory and housekeeping genes across 32 animal species.

The researchers found no simple relationship between gene content and morphological diversity. Instead, animal body plans appear to depend primarily on how gene-regulatory networks are organized and deployed—not simply on gaining or losing particular genes.

One result stood out: the emergence of new microRNA families was strongly associated with increasing organismal complexity. This highlights the importance of non-coding gene regulators in the evolution of new cell types and increasingly complex body plans.

The international study included Pedro Martínez from the University of Barcelona, a long-standing MIRevolution collaborator and frequent visitor to the Fromm Lab in Tromsø.

Read the paper:
Peterson, K. J. et al. (2026). Exploring the Genotype-to-Phenotype Map Using Quantifiable Patterns in Metazoan Genomic and Morphological Data. The American Naturalist, 207, 666–692. https://doi.org/10.1086/739490

The research was supported by the Trond Mohn Research Foundation and UiT The Arctic University of Norway.