Search results for " sea urchin development"
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Metallothionein genes in sea urchin embryos and their induction by cadmium
2012
Metallothioneins (MTs) are proteins that play a major role in metal homeostasis and as a reservoir. The MT gene/protein systems of sea urchins are an invaluable model for the study of gene expression regulation and MT isoform-specific functionality of these proteins. We isolated five paralogous MT isogenes and we studied their expression in the sea urchin embryo Paracentrotus lividus. The Cadmium-dependent transcriptional activation of the five isogenes was assessed using quantitative Real Time PCR. Two of the five P. lividus MT (MT-7 and MT-8) isogenes appeared to be constitutively expressed and upregulated upon cadmium treatment. Three isogenes (MT-4/MT-6) are not transcribed in control e…
p38 MAPK activation is required for Paracentrotus lividus skeletogenesis
2008
We investigated the p38 MAPK role during sea urchin, Paracentrotus lividus, development. We found that at the morula stage, before the onset of skeletogenesis, p38 MAPK shows a peak of activity, and we tested whether p38 MAPK activity has any effect on skeletogenesis. By immunohistochemistry on whole-mount embryos we show the preferential localization of the active p38 form both in the presumptive PMCs and bilateral spiculo- genesis centers in control embryos, and in the radialized supernumerary spiculogenesis centers induced by NiCl2 treatment. By using SB203580, a p38 MAPK specific inhibitor, we show that p38 activity is required both for the initial triradiate spicule rudiments formation…