placozoa

The guardian of the genome in one of the simplest of animals

edyong | December 11, 2009

I've got a new story up in New Scientist about the discovery of a gene called p53 - the so-called guardian of the genome - in one of the simplest group of animals, the Placozoa. A vital gene that defends us against cancer has been found in one of the simplest of animals - a flat, amoeba-like creature called a placozoan. The discovery shows that p53, sometimes described as the "guardian of the genome", has been around for over 1 billion years Placozoans are so simple that it's hard to conceive of them as animals at all. They have no tissues or organs, no front or back, no left or right. They…