Victoria A. Sleight

University of Aberdeen | ABDN · School of Biological Sciences

The Antarctic clam Laternula elliptica lives almost permanently below 0 °C and therefore is a valuable and tractable model to study the mechanisms of biomineralisation in cold water. The present study employed a multidisciplinary approach using histology, immunohistochemistry, electron microscopy, proteomics and gene expression to investigate this...

Paired fins are a defining feature of the jawed vertebrate body plan, but their evolutionary origin remains unresolved. Gegenbaur proposed that paired fins evolved as gill arch serial homologues, but this hypothesis is now widely discounted, owing largely to the presumed distinct embryonic origins of these structures from mesoderm and neural crest,...

Adult molluscs produce shells with diverse morphologies and ornamentations, different colour patterns and microstructures. The larval shell, however, is a phenotypically more conserved structure. How do developmental and evolutionary processes generate varying diversity at different life-history stages within a species? Using live imaging, histolog...

The gill skeleton of cartilaginous fishes (sharks, skates, rays, and holocephalans) exhibits a striking anterior-posterior polarity, with a series of fine appendages called branchial rays projecting from the posterior margin of the gill arch cartilages. We previously demonstrated in the skate (Leucoraja erinacea) that branchial rays derive from a p...

Motivation: The molecular processes regulating molluscan shell production remain relatively uncharacterised, despite the clear evolutionary and societal importance of biomineralisation. Results: Here we built the first computationally predicted gene regulatory network (GRN) for molluscan biomineralisation using Antarctic clam (Laternula elliptic...

Biomineralisation is the process by which living organisms produce hard structures such as shells and bone. There are multiple independent origins of biomineralised skeletons across the tree of life. This review gives a glimpse into the diversity of spiralian biominerals and what they can teach us about the evolution of novelty. It discusses differ...

Skates are cartilaginous fish whose body plan features enlarged wing-like pectoral fins, enabling them to thrive in benthic environments1,2. However, the molecular underpinnings of this unique trait remain unclear. Here we investigate the origin of this phenotypic innovation by developing the little skate Leucoraja erinacea as a genomically enabled...

The gill arch skeleton of cartilaginous fishes (sharks, skates, rays and holocephalans) exhibits anterior–posterior polarity, with a series of appendages (branchial rays) projecting from the posterior margin of the gill arch cartilages. We previously demonstrated in the skate ( Leucoraja erinacea ) that branchial rays derive from a posterior domain...

Adult molluscs produce shells with diverse morphologies and ornamentations, different colour patterns and microstructures. The larval shell however, is a phenotypically more conserved structure. How do developmental and evolutionary processes generate varying diversity at different life history stages? Using live-imaging, histology, scanning electr...

Skates are cartilaginous fish whose novel body plan features remarkably enlarged wing-like pectoral fins that allow them to thrive in benthic environments. The molecular underpinnings of this unique trait, however, remain elusive. Here we investigate the origin of this phenotypic innovation by developing the little skate Leucoraja erinacea as a gen...

The vast majority of extant vertebrate diversity lies within the bony and cartilaginous fish lineages of jawed vertebrates. There is a long history of elegant experimental investigation of development in bony vertebrate model systems (e.g., mouse, chick, frog and zebrafish). However, studies on the development of cartilaginous fishes (sharks, skate...

The origin of the jaw is a long-standing problem in vertebrate evolutionary biology. Classical hypotheses of serial homology propose that the upper and lower jaw evolved through modifications of dorsal and ventral gill arch skeletal elements, respectively. If the jaw and gill arches are derived members of a primitive branchial series, we predict th...

Single-cell sequencing technologies are revolutionizing biology, but they are limited by the need to dissociate live samples. Here, we present ACME (ACetic-MEthanol), a dissociation approach for single-cell transcriptomics that simultaneously fixes cells. ACME-dissociated cells have high RNA integrity, can be cryopreserved multiple times, and are s...

The origin of the jaw is a long-standing problem in vertebrate evolutionary biology. Classical hypotheses of serial homology propose that the upper and lower jaw evolved through modifications of dorsal and ventral gill arch skeletal elements, respectively. If the jaw and gill arches are derived members of a primitive branchial series, we predict th...

Most molluscs possess shells, constructed from a vast array of microstructures and architectures. The fully formed shell is composed of calcite or aragonite. These CaCO3 crystals form complex biocomposites with proteins, which although typically less than 5% of total shell mass, play significant roles in determining shell microstructure. Despite mu...

Paired fins are a defining feature of the jawed vertebrate body plan, but their evolutionary origin remains unresolved. Gegenbaur proposed that paired fins evolved as gill arch serial homologues, but this hypothesis is now widely discounted, owing largely to the presumed distinct embryonic origins of these structures from mesoderm and neural crest,...

Single-cell sequencing technologies are revolutionizing biology, but are limited by the need to dissociate fresh samples that can only be fixed at later stages. We present ACME (ACetic-MEthanol) dissociation, a cell dissociation approach that fixes cells as they are being dissociated. ACME-dissociated cells have high RNA integrity, can be cryoprese...

A computationally predicted gene regulatory network (GRN), generated from mantle-specific gene expression profiles in the Antarctic clam Laternula elliptica, was interrogated to test the regulation and interaction of duplicated inducible hsp70 paralogues. hsp70A and hsp70B were identified in the GRN with each paralogue falling into unique submodule...

Acclimation, via phenotypic flexibility, is a potential means for a fast response to climate change. Understanding the molecular mechanisms underpinning phenotypic flexibility can provide a fine-scale cellular understanding of how organisms acclimate. In the last 30 years, Mya truncata populations around the UK have faced an average increase in sea...

Microplastics (MPs) are prevalent in marine ecosystems. Because toxicants (termed here “co-contaminants”) can sorb to MPs, there is potential for MPs to alter co-contaminant bioavailability. Our objective was to demonstrate sorption of two co-contaminants with different physicochemistries [phenanthrene (Phe), log10Kow = 4.57; and 17α-ethinylestradi...

Bivalves have evolved a range of complex shell forming mechanisms that are reflected by their incredible diversity in shell mineralogy and microstructures. A suite of proteins exported to the shell matrix space plays a significant role in controlling these features, in addition to underpinning some of the physical properties of the shell itself. Al...

Members of the Myidae family are ecologically and economically important, but there is currently very little molecular data on these species. The present study sequenced and assembled the mantle transcriptome of Mya truncata from the North West coast of Scotland and identified candidate biomineralisation genes. RNA-Seq reads were assembled to creat...

Mollusc shell is built up by secretion from the mantle and is the result of a controlled biological process termed biomineralisation. In general mollusc shells are well characterised however, the molecular mechanisms used by molluscs to produce shell remain largely unknown. One tractable method to study molecular biomineralisation mechanisms are sh...

A science degree must teach students to be scientists. Many students will obtain a science degree and use their newly gained transferable skills to work in non-science avenues but, at the core of every science degree, should be the educating of students to be scientists. Essentially, a science degree should train students to ask and answer question...

Table S1: A comparison of methods using during this study at University of Barcelona (UB), Plymouth University (PU) and Natural History Museum (NHM), and used by Van Cauwenberghe et al. (2013). The table is followed by a short discussion about the methodological differences. Table S2: Raw data showing sample extraction method, volume of sediment pr...

Fig S2. The quantity and type of plastic and rayon fibres found in 50 ml of sediment (a) by sample, (b) total proportion of each microfibre type. The following are all in the same file

Marine debris, mostly consisting of plastic, is a global problem, negatively impacting wildlife, tourism and shipping. However, despite the durability of plastic, and the exponential increase in its production, monitoring data show limited evidence of concomitant increasing concentrations in marine habitats. There appears to be a considerable propo...

Microplastic pollution is ubiquitous in the marine environment. The potential for microplastics to transport harmful pollutants into the food chain is largely unknown, but often speculated, and the bioavailability of sorbed co-contaminants has received little empirical investigation. In two separate experiments, the present study assessed the bioav...

A broad range of chemical contaminants and pollutants have been measured within the Chagos Archipelago. Contamination is amongst the lowest in the world. Whilst much data is in the open literature, the chapter also includes details of extensive pollution monitoring for the atoll Diego Garcia which hosts a military facility. Hydrocarbons present are...