Myosin repertoire expansion coincides with eukaryotic diversification in the Mesoproterozoic era.

By correlating the evolution of myosin diversity with the history of Earth we found that myosin innovation occurred in independent major "burst" events in the major eukaryotic lineages. Most myosin inventions happened in the Mesoproterozoic era. In the late Neoproterozoic era, a process of extensive independent myosin loss began simultaneously with further eukaryotic diversification. Since the Cambrian explosion, myosin repertoire expansion is driven by lineage- and species-specific gene and genome duplications leading to subfunctionalization and fine-tuning of myosin functions.