HEDoctoral network2024–2027

ZooCELL · Tracing the evolution of sensory cell types in animal diversity: multidisciplinary training in 3D cellular reconstruction, multimodal data analysis and science outreach.

Horizon Europe — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration: 2024-01-01 → 2027-12-31
EU contribution: €2,681,770
Participants: 17
Scheme: HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-DN

Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.

Results in brief

Tracing the evolution of sensory cell types in animal diversity: multidisciplinary training in 3D cellular reconstruction, multimodal data analysis and science outreach.

Sensory cells in marine invertebrates play a fundamental role in detecting environmental cues and translating them into biological responses that enable survival, feeding, reproduction, and interaction with the environment. These cells detect chemical and mechanical stimuli, gravity, temperature, and salinity, guiding behaviours such as predator avoidance, navigation, and larval settlement. However, the diversity and evolutionary relationships of sensory cell types across animal phyla, and the mechanisms by which they have been adapted, modified, reused, or lost, remain poorly understood. ZooCELL aims to uncover the evolutionary principles governing cell type diversification, with a particular focus on sensory cells. The project is based on identifying recurrent patterns of genetic programs and sub-cellular organization across a wide range of animals. By integrating cellular ultrastructure analysis with genetics, two fields that have largely developed separately, ZooCELL establishes a novel framework for comparative cell type analysis. By combining volume electron microscopy (vEM) with cellular-resolution gene expression profiling of entire organs or whole organisms, we link the ultrastructural complexity of sensory cells to their gene expression profiles at single-cell resolution. This integrative approach overcomes the traditional separation between morphological and molecular analyses and enables evolutionary comparisons at the level of individual cell types across species. These efforts lay the foundation for a new field of comparative integrative cell biology. At the same time, ZooCELL provides advanced interdisciplinary training to doctoral candidates (DCs), equipping them with expertise in cutting-edge imaging, molecular profiling, data integration, and evolutionary analysis. Through its comprehensive training programme, ZooCELL fosters scientific excellence, critical thinking, and transferable skills, strengthening the career perspectives and employability of the DCs. The main impact of the action is the development of outstanding early-stage researchers who will contribute to reinforcing the European life-science landscape and the knowledge-based economy. In addition, the programme includes strong dissemination and public outreach components, contributing to the development of well-rounded scientists and increasing societal awareness of fundamental research in evolutionary and cell biology.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

All animals need to sense their environments. The ability to detect light, temperature, chemicals, sound, vibrations and other stimuli depends on an extraordinary range of sensory cell types. The diversity and relationships between these receptor cells across the animal phyla, the ways in which they have been adapted, reused, tweaked and sometimes lost, is little known, but is crucial for understanding how animals survive and thrive in diverse environments. Most sensory cells are characterised by complex shapes and molecular machinery, first discovered by meticulous electron microscopy in the past decades. More recently, this has been complemented by genetic studies of their development and differentiation in various animal models. These two research programmes have, however, largely remained separate, and a unified morphological and molecular understanding of how the diversity of animal sensory cells has evolved is lacking. Our aim in ZooCELL is to create a comprehensive view of sensory cell type evolution based on the discovery of recurrent patterns of genetic and subcellular structure across a wide range of new animal models. To this end, we will combine single-cell genomics, correlative light and electron microscopy, Artificial Intelligence, and reverse genetics approaches in these species. ZooCELL will bring together Europe’s world-leading expertise in these disciplines, and thus contribute to building the field of comparative integrative cell biology in animals. While training the next generation of doctoral students in these novel interdisciplinary techniques, we will develop new tools for combined molecular and morphological comparative analyses of cell types. Our interdisciplinary, intersectoral and international training programme will also include dissemination and public outreach, and the comprehensive training provided will enable our graduate students to assume leadership roles in academia, industry and science outreach.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

EUROPEAN MOLECULAR BIOLOGY LABORATORY · HeidelbergCoordinatorGermany
CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS · ParisFrance
DELMIC BV · DELFTNetherlands
ECOLE NORMALE SUPERIEURE DE LYON · LyonFrance
FRIEDRICH-SCHILLER-UNIVERSITÄT JENA · JENAGermany
HUMBOLDT-UNIVERSITAET ZU BERLIN · BerlinGermany
LEICA MICROSYSTEMS CMS GMBH · WetzlarGermany
MUSEUM FUR NATURKUNDE - LEIBNIZ-INSTITUT FUR EVOLUTIONS- UND BIODIVERSITATSFORSCHUNG AN DER HUMBOLDT-UNIVERSITAT ZU BERLIN · BerlinGermany
RUPRECHT-KARLS-UNIVERSITAET HEIDELBERG · HeidelbergGermany
SINGLE CELL DISCOVERIES BV · UtrechtNetherlands
SORBONNE UNIVERSITE · ParisFrance
STAZIONE ZOOLOGICA ANTON DOHRN · NapoliItaly
STOCKHOLMS UNIVERSITET · StockholmSweden
Sonja NossGermany
THE UNIVERSITY OF EXETER · ExeterUnited Kingdom
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON · LondonUnited Kingdom
UPPSALA UNIVERSITET · UppsalaSweden

ZooCELL · Tracing the evolution of sensory cell types in animal diversity: multidisciplinary training in 3D cellular reconstruction, multimodal data analysis and science outreach.

Results in brief

Tracing the evolution of sensory cell types in animal diversity: multidisciplinary training in 3D cellular reconstruction, multimodal data analysis and science outreach.

Project objective

Participants

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