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Divergence of ectodermal and mesodermal gene regulatory network linkages in early development of sea urchins.

ABSTRACT: Developmental gene regulatory networks (GRNs) are assemblages of gene regulatory interactions that direct ontogeny of animal body plans. Studies of GRNs operating in the early development of euechinoid sea urchins have revealed that little appreciable change has occurred since their divergence ?90 million years ago (mya). These observations suggest that strong conservation of GRN architecture was maintained in early development of the sea urchin lineage. Testing whether this holds for all sea urchins necessitates comparative analyses of echinoid taxa that diverged deeper in geological time. Recent studies highlighted extensive divergence of skeletogenic mesoderm specification in the sister clade of euechinoids, the cidaroids, suggesting that comparative analyses of cidaroid GRN architecture may confer a greater understanding of the evolutionary dynamics of developmental GRNs. Here I report spatiotemporal patterning of 55 regulatory genes and perturbation analyses of key regulatory genes involved in euechinoid oral-aboral patterning of nonskeletogenic mesodermal and ectodermal domains in early development of the cidaroid Eucidaris tribuloides These results indicate that developmental GRNs directing mesodermal and ectodermal specification have undergone marked alterations since the divergence of cidaroids and euechinoids. Notably, statistical and clustering analyses of echinoid temporal gene expression datasets indicate that regulation of mesodermal genes has diverged more markedly than regulation of ectodermal genes. Although research on indirect-developing euechinoid sea urchins suggests strong conservation of GRN circuitry during early embryogenesis, this study indicates that since the divergence of cidaroids and euechinoids, developmental GRNs have undergone significant, cell type-biased alterations.

SUBMITTER: Erkenbrack EM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5135324 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Divergence of ectodermal and mesodermal gene regulatory network linkages in early development of sea urchins.

Erkenbrack Eric M EM

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20161103 46

Developmental gene regulatory networks (GRNs) are assemblages of gene regulatory interactions that direct ontogeny of animal body plans. Studies of GRNs operating in the early development of euechinoid sea urchins have revealed that little appreciable change has occurred since their divergence ∼90 million years ago (mya). These observations suggest that strong conservation of GRN architecture was maintained in early development of the sea urchin lineage. Testing whether this holds for all sea ur ...[more]

PMID: 27810959

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Project description:Using chromatin immunoprecipitation combined with microarrays we have identified targets of No tail (Ntl), a zebrafish Brachyury ortholog that plays a central role in mesoderm formation. We show that Ntl regulates a downstream network of other transcription factors and identify an in vivo Ntl binding site that resembles the consensus T-box binding site (TBS) previously identified by in vitro studies. We show floating head (flh) is a direct transcriptional target of Ntl in the notochord and that TBS in the flh upstream region are required for Ntl directed expression. Using this genome-scale data we have assembled a Gene Regulatory Network that describes mesoderm formation and patterning in the early zebrafish embryo and which predicts a role for Ntl in somite segmentation. Keywords: ChIP-chip Genomic array design. Microarrays were designed as described below and manufactured by Agilent Technologies (www.agilent.com). We have previously described the ChIP-chip technique in zebrafish and the design of promoter microarrays which cover a 2kb region around the transcription start sites (TSSs) of 11,512 zebrafish genes based on Zv4 (Wardle et al, 2006. Genome Biology 7:R71). In order to capture additional regulatory information further from the basal promoter region we also designed an expanded set of 60mer probes that cover 9kb upstream and 3kb downstream of the TSS of these genes using the same parameters as for the 2kb microarrays. We also incorporated several sets of control probes, both positive and negative. On each array there are 753 negative probes designed against zebrafish gene desert regions and Arabidopsis thaliana genes. In addition we included duplicates of promoter probes for several genes that we anticipated may be bound by factors of interest for this and other studies (wnt11, flh, vent, msgn1, myod, fgf8, pcdh8) and these probes are arrayed on both slides slide. We also included in this design 502 intensity control probes. Finally there are 2,256 controls added by Agilent. The final design contained 378,002 probes, including 365,537 experimental probes divided between nine microarray slides: slides 1-8 contained 40,616 experimental probes and slide 9 contained 40, 609. Further information on design and manufacture of the microarrays can be found on the Agilent Technologies website (www.agilent.com).

Dataset Information

Divergence of ectodermal and mesodermal gene regulatory network linkages in early development of sea urchins.

Publications

Divergence of ectodermal and mesodermal gene regulatory network linkages in early development of sea urchins.

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