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RESEARCH PRODUCT

2 Genes and Their Products in Sea Urchin Development

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Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on the genes and their products in sea urchin development. Sea urchin embryos were among the first eukaryotes in which regulation of gene expression was studied and still represent one of the main developing systems for which most of the literature has accumulated in the past and also in recent years. The interest in the subject has, however, shifted from the molecular biology field—that is, from the study of the mechanisms of regulation of gene expression—to a field in which the role of genes and their products on development is being considered. The study of the synthesis of histones has served the purpose of trying to understand the mechanisms, underlying the temporal regulation of the expression of different classes of genes, at different times of development but has provided no information about the spatial regulation of this expression in different embryonic territories because the ubiquitous histone genes are expressed in all the embryonic cells. Ectoderm-specific genes have been studied mainly in two species—that is, S. purpuratus and L. pictus . Proteins characteristic of the primary mesenchyme cells (PMC) has been described.