[{"fulldoi":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.10.09.680955","acknowledgement":"We would like to thank the members of the Sweeney Lab for discussion and support; Andrey\r\nBydanov for technical assistance with single-cell sequencing processing; and Jay Bikoff,\r\nNikos Konstantinides, Maria Tosches, and Graziana Gatto for comments on the manuscript. \r\nThis research was supported by: Horizon Europe ERC Starting Grant 101041551 (L.B.S,\r\nY.I., S.P.); Special Research Program (SFB) of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) F7814-B\r\n(L.B.S., S.P., E.M.T); Austrian Science Fund (FWF) 10.55776/COE16 (L.B.S., Y.I., E.M.T.);\r\nAustrian Academy of Sciences DOC Fellowship 27229 (S.P.); ERC Advanced Grant 742046\r\n(E.M.T.); NIH award R24 OD031956 (L.P.); and in part by the Intramural Research\r\nProgram of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through 1ZIA NS003153 to A.J.L.\r\nThe contributions of the NIH author are considered Works of the United States\r\nGovernment. The findings and conclusions presented in this paper are those of\r\nthe authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NIH or the U.S. Department\r\nof Health and Human Services. ","date_created":"2026-05-27T06:54:04Z","tmp":{"short":"CC BY-NC-ND (4.0)","legal_code_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode","image":"/images/cc_by_nc_nd.png","name":"Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)"},"oa_version":"Preprint","date_published":"2025-10-11T00:00:00Z","oa":1,"abstract":[{"text":"Vertebrates display remarkable diversity of sensorimotor behaviors, each adapted to distinct ecological and survival demands. This diversity raises fundamental questions about the evolutionary origin of motor control: do conserved spinal circuits underlie these behaviors, and how have they diverged across species. Recent studies detail spinal cell-type architecture in mammals but comparable, high-resolution atlases of the non-mammalian spinal cord are lacking. Here, we compare spinal cord cell types between fish, frogs, mice and humans, spanning ∼450 million years of evolution. Across species, we define highly conserved programs of cell type specification that segregate spinal neurons into nearly identical cardinal classes during development. This contrasts with adult stages, when spinal cell-type composition selectively diverges for excitatory neuron subpopulations. Using spatial transcriptomics, we localize this species divergence to the superficial, dorsal spinal cord, where variant neuropeptide expression defines mammalian-specific cell types. The most dorsal spinal cord thus emerges as a recently evolved hub for sensory integration in mammals, a neospinal cord analogous to the neocortex.</jats:p>","lang":"eng"}],"department":[{"_id":"LoSw"},{"_id":"ScienComp"}],"user_id":"8b945eb4-e2f2-11eb-945a-df72226e66a9","status":"public","project":[{"_id":"ebb66355-77a9-11ec-83b8-b8ac210a4dae","name":"Development and Evolution of Tetrapod Motor Circuits","grant_number":"101041551"},{"_id":"907b765e-16d5-11f0-9cad-fef108a945b1","grant_number":"27229","name":"A Tale of Two Circuits: Rostrocaudal spinal cord patterning during the swim-to-limb transition of Xenopus metamorphosis"}],"author":[{"last_name":"Ignatyev","first_name":"Yuri","full_name":"Ignatyev, Yuri"},{"full_name":"Papadopoulos, Stavros","id":"40606b92-f128-11eb-9611-bf66a98cfa5c","first_name":"Stavros","last_name":"Papadopoulos"},{"full_name":"Soretić, Mateja","first_name":"Mateja","last_name":"Soretić"},{"id":"123012b2-db30-11eb-b4d8-a35840c0551b","full_name":"Yeung, Jake","orcid":"0000-0003-1732-1559","first_name":"Jake","last_name":"Yeung"},{"first_name":"Tzi-Yang","last_name":"Lin","full_name":"Lin, Tzi-Yang"},{"last_name":"Tanaka","first_name":"Elly M","full_name":"Tanaka, Elly M"},{"first_name":"Leonid","last_name":"Peshkin","full_name":"Peshkin, Leonid"},{"first_name":"Ariel J","last_name":"Levine","full_name":"Levine, Ariel J"},{"full_name":"Gabitto, Mariano I","last_name":"Gabitto","first_name":"Mariano I"},{"id":"56BE8254-C4F0-11E9-8E45-0B23E6697425","full_name":"Sweeney, Lora Beatrice Jaeger","orcid":"0000-0001-9242-5601","last_name":"Sweeney","first_name":"Lora Beatrice Jaeger"}],"date_updated":"2026-05-27T07:25:41Z","citation":{"apa":"Ignatyev, Y., Papadopoulos, S., Soretić, M., Yeung, J., Lin, T.-Y., Tanaka, E. M., … Sweeney, L. B. (n.d.). Innovations in spinal cord cell type heterogeneity across vertebrate evolution. <i>bioRxiv</i>. <a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.10.09.680955\">https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.10.09.680955</a>","ieee":"Y. Ignatyev <i>et al.</i>, “Innovations in spinal cord cell type heterogeneity across vertebrate evolution,” <i>bioRxiv</i>. .","short":"Y. Ignatyev, S. Papadopoulos, M. Soretić, J. Yeung, T.-Y. Lin, E.M. Tanaka, L. Peshkin, A.J. Levine, M.I. Gabitto, L.B. Sweeney, BioRxiv (n.d.).","mla":"Ignatyev, Yuri, et al. “Innovations in Spinal Cord Cell Type Heterogeneity across Vertebrate Evolution.” <i>BioRxiv</i>, doi:<a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.10.09.680955\">10.1101/2025.10.09.680955</a>.","chicago":"Ignatyev, Yuri, Stavros Papadopoulos, Mateja Soretić, Jake Yeung, Tzi-Yang Lin, Elly M Tanaka, Leonid Peshkin, Ariel J Levine, Mariano I Gabitto, and Lora B. Sweeney. “Innovations in Spinal Cord Cell Type Heterogeneity across Vertebrate Evolution.” <i>BioRxiv</i>, n.d. <a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.10.09.680955\">https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.10.09.680955</a>.","ama":"Ignatyev Y, Papadopoulos S, Soretić M, et al. Innovations in spinal cord cell type heterogeneity across vertebrate evolution. <i>bioRxiv</i>. doi:<a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.10.09.680955\">10.1101/2025.10.09.680955</a>","ista":"Ignatyev Y, Papadopoulos S, Soretić M, Yeung J, Lin T-Y, Tanaka EM, Peshkin L, Levine AJ, Gabitto MI, Sweeney LB. Innovations in spinal cord cell type heterogeneity across vertebrate evolution. bioRxiv, <a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.10.09.680955\">10.1101/2025.10.09.680955</a>."},"publication":"bioRxiv","day":"11","language":[{"iso":"eng"}],"title":"Innovations in spinal cord cell type heterogeneity across vertebrate evolution","OA_type":"green","corr_author":"1","OA_place":"repository","year":"2025","main_file_link":[{"open_access":"1","url":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.10.09.680955"}],"month":"10","doi":"10.1101/2025.10.09.680955","article_processing_charge":"No","_id":"21920","type":"preprint","publication_status":"submitted"}]