Molecular analysis of Cnidarian embryogenesis: Systematic identification of genes regulating embryonic development of Nematostella vectensis (Anthozoa)
Final Report Abstract
The anthozoan sea anemone Nematostella vectensis is considered as a representative of a very basal branch of the animal kingdom. We carried out a relatively large EST screen using mixed embryonic stages as the source fort he RNA. Two cDNA libraries were generated and one of them, a normalized library was used for extensive sequencing of the 5' ends. In total >15.000 ESTs were sequenced which clustered into > 10.000 unigenes. These data were analysed in combination with a dataset of the coral Acropora millepora (in a collaboration with David Miller and colleagues). The major conclusion from this analysis is that the transcriptome of the anthozoans shows a surprising degree of genetic complexity, which is due to three factors: (1) maintenance of an ancestral metazoan complex gene repertoire, with many genes present in the anthozoans which were lost in particular in the nematode and Drosophila lineages, (2) maintenance of non-metazoan genes present in plants, bacteria, protists, fungi (3) relative high number of lineage-specific gene duplications, further adding to the high number of different transcripts. Besides this main paper, many genes uncovered by this EST screen contributed directly to several other studies, published in high ranking journals.
Publications
- (2005). Cnidarians and ancestral genetic complexity in the animal kingdom. Trends Genet. 21(10):536-9
Miller DJ, Ball EE, Technau U
- (2005). Maintenance of ancestral complexity and non-metazoan genes in two basal cnidarians. Trends Genet. 21(12):633-9
Technau U, Rudd S, Maxwell P, Gordon PM, Saina M, Grasso LC, Hayward DC, Sensen CW, Saint R, Holstein TW, Ball EE, Miller DJ
- (2005). Unexpected complexity of the Wnt gene family in a sea anemone. Nature 433:156-60
Kusserow A, Pang K, Sturm C, Hrouda M, Lentfer J, Schmidt HA, Technau U, von Haeseler A, Hobmayer B, Martindale MQ, Holstein TW
- (2006). Asymmetrie expression of the BMP antagonists chordin and gremlin in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis: implications for the evolution of axial patterning. Dev Biol. 296:375-87
Rentzsch F, Anton R, Saina M, Hammerschmidt M, Holstein TW, Technau U
- (2006). Minimal ProtoHox cluster inferred from bilaterian and cnidarian Hox complements. Nature 442:684-7
Chourrout D, Delsuc F, Chourrout P, Edvardsen RB, Rentzsch F, Renfer E, Jensen MF, Zhu B, de Jong P, Steele RE, Technau U
- (2007). Early development and axis specification in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis. Dev. Biol.
Fritzenwanker J, Genikhovich, G, Kraus Y, Technau U
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ydbio.2007.07.029) - (2007). Sea anemone genome reveals ancestral eumetazoan gene repertoire and genomic organization. Science 317:86-94
Putnam NH, Srivastava M, Hellsten U, Dirks B, Chapman J, Salamov A, Terry A, Shapiro H, Lindquist E, Kapitonov VV, Jurka J, Genikhovich G, Grigoriev IV, Lucas SM, Steele RE, Finnerry JR, Technau U, Martindale MQ, Rokhsar DS
