Project description:Among urochordates (tunicates)—the closest living relatives of vertebrates—Ciona intestinalis is increasingly being used as a model organism in the field of developmental biology. Ciona intestinalis is the seventh animal which genome published; the ~120-Mbp euchromatin region is estimated to contain ~16,000 protein-coding genes. In addition, analyses of more than one million ESTs have provided the foundation for gene models and associated transcriptomes. The fertilized Ciona intestinalis egg develops into a tadpole larva with a simplified chordate body plan, and then it metamorphose into adult sea squirt of sessile filter feeder. One of interests in the field of developmental biology is to understand what kind of genes are expressed in the body and how spatially and/or temporally coordinated expression of genes is controlled. In this study, we investigated the entire gene expression of 11 organs of adult Ciona; the neural complex, branchial sac, esophagus, stomach, endostyle, intestine, body-wall muscle, heart, blood cells, ovary, and testis. Our data would provides basic information of transcriptome in each organ and help to understand gene expression control of organ specific genes.
Project description:Among urochordates (tunicates)âthe closest living relatives of vertebratesâCiona intestinalis is increasingly being used as a model organism in the field of developmental biology. Ciona intestinalis is the seventh animal which genome published; the ~120-Mbp euchromatin region is estimated to contain ~16,000 protein-coding genes. In addition, analyses of more than one million ESTs have provided the foundation for gene models and associated transcriptomes. The fertilized Ciona intestinalis egg develops into a tadpole larva with a simplified chordate body plan, and then it metamorphose into adult sea squirt of sessile filter feeder. One of interests in the field of developmental biology is to understand what kind of genes are expressed in the body and how spatially and/or temporally coordinated expression of genes is controlled. In this study, we investigated the entire gene expression of 11 organs of adult Ciona; the neural complex, branchial sac, esophagus, stomach, endostyle, intestine, body-wall muscle, heart, blood cells, ovary, and testis. Our data would provides basic information of transcriptome in each organ and help to understand gene expression control of organ specific genes. Gene expressions in 11 organs of adult Ciona intestinalis; blood cells, branchial sac, digestive grand, endostyle, esophagus, heart, body-wall muscle, neural complex, ovary, stomach and testis. Three independent experiments were performed at each tissue using different individuals for each experiment.
Project description:The primitive chordate Ciona intestinalis has emerged as a significant model system for the study of heart development. The Ciona embryo employs a conserved heart gene network in the context of extremely low cell numbers and reduced genetic redundancy. Here, I review recent studies on the molecular genetics of Ciona cardiogenesis as well as classic work on heart anatomy and physiology. I also discuss the potential of employing Ciona to decipher a comprehensive chordate gene network and to determine how this network controls heart morphogenesis.
Project description:Gene number can be considered a pragmatic measure of biological complexity, but reliable data is scarce. Estimates for vertebrates are 50-100,000 genes per haploid genome, whereas invertebrate estimates fall below 25,000. We wished to test the hypothesis that the origin of vertebrates coincided with extensive gene creation. A prediction is that gene number will differ sharply between invertebrate and vertebrate members of the chordate phylum. A gene number estimation method requiring limited sequence sampling of genomic DNA was developed and validated by using data for Caenorhabditis elegans. Using the method, we estimated that the invertebrate chordate Ciona intestinalis has 15,500 protein-coding genes (+/-3,700). This number is significantly lower than gene numbers of vertebrate chordates, but similar to those of invertebrates in distantly related phyla. The data indicate that evolution of vertebrates was accompanied by a dramatic increase in protein-coding capacity of the genome.