Jellyfish stinging cells reveal biodiversity secrets

According to a new Cornell research, Cnidocytes, also known as stinging cells are characteristics of Corals and Jellyfish. It makes us cautious of our feet while wading in the sea, are also a magnificent model for a better understanding of the emergence of new cell types.Leslie Babonis, assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology in the College of Arts and Sciences, showed that these stinging cells evolved by repurposing a neuron inherited from a pre-cnidarian ancestor and these surprising results demonstrate how new genes acquire new functions to drive the evolution of biodiversity. This was the first study to show that this logic is in place in a cnidarian, Babonis said, so this feature was likely to regulate how cells became different from each other in the earliest multicellular animals.