Anyone who has been stung by a jellyfish might think they know more than enough about cnidocytes, the cells that deliver the sting. But one researcher has found that these cells have much more to tell, including insight into a simple evolutionary mechanism that, hundreds of millions of years ago, might have enabled jellyfish, sea anemones, corals, and their relatives—collectively known as cnidarians—to quickly adapt to new environments. The evolutionary developmental biologists used the gene-editing tool CRISPR to knock out the anemone's Sox2 gene, known to be important in neural development in many animals. As a result, stinger cells were deformed or missing. In the body wall, those cells were replaced by cells that shoot out sticky threads. This switch is a type of homeotic transformation and shows this molecular mechanism predates the split between bilaterians and cnidarians.

任何被水母st伤的人可能会认为，他们对刺细胞（传递刺的细胞）了解得足够多。但是，一位研究人员发现，这些细胞还有很多要说的，包括深入了解一种简单的进化机制，这种进化机制可能使亿万年前的海ly，海葵，珊瑚及其亲属（统称为刺胞）得以快速适应新环境。进化发育生物学家使用基因编辑工具CRISPR敲除海葵的Sox2基因，已知在许多动物的神经发育中都很重要。结果，毒刺细胞变形或缺失。在体壁上，那些细胞被发出粘滞线的细胞所取代。这种转换是同种异型转化的一种，表明这种分子机制早于双语者和刺胞者之间的分裂。