Chromatin loops are an ancestral hallmark of the animal regulatory genome [Micro-C]

We characterised the genome organization in non-bilaterian animals (sponge Ephydatia muelleri, ctenophores Mnemiopsis leidyi and Hormiphora californensis, placozoans Trichoplax adhaerens and Cladtertia collaboinventa, and cnidarian Nematostella vectensis) and close unicellular relatives (ichthyosporeans Sphaeroforma arctica, filasterean Capsaspora owczarzaki and choanoflagellate Salpingoeca rosetta) by combining high-resolution chromosome conformation capture (Micro-C) with profiling of chromatin marks (ChIP-seq), accessible genomic regions (ATAC-seq) and gene expression (MARS-seq). Micro-C chromosome conformation capture libraries were generated for the non-bilaterian animals (sponge Ephydatia muelleri, ctenophores Mnemiopsis leidyi and Hormiphora californensis, placozoans Trichoplax adhaerens and Cladtertia collaboinventa, and cnidarian Nematostella vectensis) and close unicellular relative of animals (ichthyosporeans Sphaeroforma arctica, filasterean Capsaspora owczarzaki and choanoflagellate Salpingoeca rosetta).