Evolution in Action: Giant Ankyrins Awake

Reporting in Developmental Cell, Stephan et al. (2015) demonstrate critical axonal and presynaptic functions from acquisition of an enormous exon by the Drosophila ank2 gene. They propose that highly elongated ank2-XL molecules, associated with the plasma membrane through spectrin and ank2-L, extend deep into the axoplasm to promote microtubule organization.