Molecular Determinants of Radial Body Organization in Echinoderms

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

9506855 Wray Enormous strides have been made recently towards understanding the molecular genetic basis for body pattern development in animals. With the breakthroughs, however, have come new questions. In particular, the expression of many patterning genes is remarkably conserved among morphologically distinct animals. Dr. Wray proposes to examine the expression, function, and evolution of several patterning genes in echinoderms, a phylum with a highly modified, radial body organization. His analysis will focus on genes whose expression is conserved in insects and vertebrates, but likely to be modified in radial animals. He will first characterize their timing, spatial domains, and transcript sizes. Genes expressed during radial body development will be selected for a detailed comparative analysis among phylogenetically diverse echinoderms. These data will be used to reconstruct the evolutionary history of expression changes during the origin and diversification of the phylum. He will manipulate the timing of adult development using environmental cues to test the hypothesis that the timing of patterning gene expression in this phylum is not "hardwired". Together, these studies will ad d considerably to our understanding of the developmental and evolutionary significance of genes with roles in body patterning. ***