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Resumen:
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Many aspects of biological diversity and their life mechanisms remain unknown and understudied. With the advent of the genomic era, RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) has become one of the most powerful tools to unravel the secrets of biological adaptation and diversity in all species through their particular gene expression profiles. Here, we studied comparatively the genes expressed in different tissues of several species of one of the least known group of vertebrates, the caecilians (order Gymnophiona). Caecilians are fossorial, limbless, tropical amphibians that constitute the sister group of frogs and salamanders. Little is known about this enigmatic animal group. To improve the understanding of caecilian ecology and evolution, we have analysed caecilian genomic functional elements at three levels: across other vertebrates, across caecilian species and among caecilian tissue types. Our study provides valuable insights about the expansion of gene machineries in vertebrates, points out proteincoding genes involved in the specific evolutionary adaptations of caecilian amphibians, and highlights important functional elements in the caecilian skin tissue type. To our knowledge, this is the first large-scale genomic characterization of the genetic functional elements of this secretive vertebrate group, and it provides the basis for future research on the molecular elements underlying the remarkable biology of caecilian amphibians.
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