Abstract As extinct animals that flourished during the Cambrian explosion, chancelloriids have a unique body plan lacking guts but with flexible integument and suite of star-shaped, hollow sclerites. Due to this plan, along paucity knowledge on sclerite biomineralization, phylogenetic position within Metazoa is still controversial. Integration analyses diverse fossils from stage 2 Wuliuan Stage...

The Yesso scallop Patinopecten yessoensis is an economically important marine bivalve species in aquaculture and fishery in Asian countries. However, limited genomic resources are available for this scallop, which hampers investigations into molecular mechanisms underlying their unique biological characteristics, such as shell formation and pigmentation. Mantle is the special tissue of P. yesso...

In an interesting work published recently in PNAS, Drake et al. (1) presented a proteomic study of the skeleton from the stony coral Stylophora pistillata. This study identified proteins that are associated to the mineral phase (i.e., that potentially contribute to shape the skeleton). In other words, this set of proteins is supposed to represent the so-called “biomineralization toolkit.”Althou...

Marine unicellular coccolithophore algae produce species-specific calcite scales otherwise known as coccoliths. While the coccoliths and their elaborate architecture have attracted the attention of investigators from various scientific disciplines, our knowledge of the underpinnings of the process of biomineralization in this alga is still in its infancy. The processes of calcification and cocc...