The maternal transcriptome of the crustacean Parhyale hawaiensis is inherited asymmetrically to invariant cell lineages of the ectoderm and mesoderm.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The embryo of the crustacean Parhyale hawaiensis has a total, unequal and invariant early cleavage pattern. It specifies cell fates earlier than other arthropods, including Drosophila, as individual blastomeres of the 8-cell stage are allocated to the germ layers and the germline. Furthermore, the 8-cell stage is amenable to embryological manipulations. These unique features make Parhyale a suitable system for elucidating germ layer specification in arthropods. Since asymmetric localization of maternally provided RNA is a widespread mechanism to specify early cell fates, we asked whether this is also true for Parhyale. A candidate gene approach did not find RNAs that are asymmetrically distributed at the 8-cell stage. Therefore, we designed a high-density microarray from

SUBMITTER: Nestorov P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3572164 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature