An alternate route to complexity: Trade-off between transcriptome plasticity and genome evolution in cephalopods

RNA editing is a post-transcriptional process that allows for diversification of proteomes beyond the genomic blueprint, a phenomenon called "recoding". However, it is infrequently used among animals for this purpose. I will review the state-of-the-art understanding of recoding by editing, and discuss at length recent results showing that recoding is particularly common in behaviorally sophisticated coleoid cephalopods. In particular, the trade-off between genome evolution and transcriptome plasticity will be suggested as a partial explanation for the rarity of recoding in most animal species.