Conservation of -Regulatory Syntax Underlying Deuterostome Gastrulation.

Throughout embryonic development, the shaping of the functional and morphological characteristics of embryos is orchestrated by an intricate interaction between transcription factors and -regulatory elements. In this study, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of deuterostome -regulatory landscapes during gastrulation, focusing on four paradigmatic species: the echinoderm , the cephalochordate , the urochordate , and the vertebrate . Our approach involved comparative computational analysis of ATAC-seq datasets to explore the genome-wide blueprint of conserved transcription factor binding motifs underlying gastrulation. We identified a core set of conserved DNA binding motifs associated with 62 known transcription factors, indicating the remarkable conservation of the gastrulation regulatory landscape across deuterostomes. Our findings offer valuable insights into the evolutionary molecular dynamics of embryonic development, shedding light on conserved regulatory subprograms and providing a comprehensive perspective on the conservation and divergence of gene regulation underlying the gastrulation process.