How does one genome create two completely different body
plans in one animal? This was the
question Konstantin Khalturin was attempting to answer when he began working on
jellyfish. The fascinating story he
discovered along the way answers questions about the regulation of metamorphosis,
an animal changing from one physical form to another, in the moon jellyfish
Aurelia aurita. In the February 3rd
edition of Current Biology, Khalturin and colleagues working at the Zoological
Institute in Kiel, Germany described a new hormone responsible for
metamorphosis in jellyfish and linked it to a common developmental biology
pathway found in more complex animals.