Project description:Sea urchins are a unique system for studying developmental transistions because of the stark differences between their bilateral larval and pentaradial adult body plans. Here, we use single cell RNA-sequencing to analyze the development of Heliocidaris erythrogramma (He), a sea urchin species with an accelerated, non-feeding mode of larval development. The sequencing time course extends from early embryogenesis to roughly a day before the onset of metamorphosis in He larvae, which is a period that has not been covered by previous datasets. We find that the non-feeding developmental strategy of He is associated with several changes in the specification of larval cell types compared to sea urchins with feeding larvae, such as the loss of a larva-specific skeletal cell population. Furthermore, the development of the larval and adult body plans in sea urchins may utilize largely different sets of regulatory genes. These findings lay the groundwork for extending existing developmental gene regulatory networks to cover additional stages of biphasic lifecycles.
Project description:Half-smooth tongue sole (Cynoglossus semilaevis) is a commercially valuable flatfish, ranking among the most valuable fishes in the coastal areas of China. It has an asymmetric body shape with lateralization of the eyes to the same side during metamorphosis as same as the other flatfish species. However, little is known about the function and profile of circRNAs in the half-smooth tongue sole. In this study,a total of 2730 circRNAs were identified from in the fish by deep RNA-sequencing technique.
Project description:Half-smooth tongue sole (Cynoglossus semilaevis) is a commercially valuable flatfish, ranking among the most valuable fishes in the coastal areas of China. It has an asymmetric body shape with lateralization of the eyes to the same side during metamorphosis as same as the other flatfish species. However, little is known about the function and profile of lncRNAs in the half-smooth tongue sole. In this study, we carry out a genome-wide review of lncRNAs in the fish by using large-scale deep sequencing.
Project description:Seawater exposure to the gram negative marine bacterium Vibrio diazotrophicus induces a robust cellular response in sea urchin larvae that includes the migration of pigment cells to the gut epithelium, changes in cell behavior and altered gut morphology (Ho et al., 2016; PMID 27192936). To investigate the transcriptional underpinnings of this response, whole transcriptome sequencing was performed on mRNA isolated from larval samples collected at 0, 6, 12 and 24 hr of exposure to V. diazotrophicus. The morphological simplicity of the sea urchin larva provides a systems-level model for identifying biologically relevant transcriptional state changes in response to dysbiosis in the gut lumen.
