Research Area

Among the living invertebrates, amphioxus shows most similarities with vertebrates in respect to either body structure, developmental process, or genome content, which makes amphioxus an ideal model organism for studying developmental and evolutionary mechanisms of vertebrate embryogenesis. We are using methods including gene knockout, transgene, microinjection, whole-mount in situ hybridization and scanning electron microscope to dissect the molecular mechanisms of amphioxus embryogenesis, aiming to illustrate how the morphological and developmental complexity of vertebrates has evolved.