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The need for jumpstarting amphibian genome projects

2011; Elsevier BV; Volume: 26; Issue: 8 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.tree.2011.04.006

1872-8383

Federico C. F. Calboli, Matthew C. Fisher, Trenton W. J. Garner, Robert Jehle,

Molecular Biology Techniques and Applications

Amphibian genomic diversity is rapidly disappearing because this class of vertebrates is facing an unprecedented decline [ 1 Stuart S.N. et al. Status and trends of amphibian declines and extinctions worldwide. Science. 2004; 306: 1783-1786 Crossref PubMed Scopus (3187) Google Scholar ]. Amphibians are the most ancient class of land-dwelling vertebrates, emerging 360 million years ago to colonise all continents except Antarctica. Their highly diversified genomes therefore hold important keys to understanding, among other traits, vertebrate terrestrialisation. Despite presenting significant hurdles to modern sequencing technology – due to an average size of 9.36 Gb for anurans to 35.90 Gb for salamanders [ 2 Gregory T.R. Animal Genome Size Database. http://www.genomesize.com/Date: 2011 Google Scholar ] – amphibian genomes hold great promise for furthering our understanding of both vertebrate evolution and development. Here we stress that amphibian genomics is also urgently needed for amphibian conservation.