Search results for " sea urchin"

Toxicity of vanadium during development of sea urchin embryos: bioaccumulation, calcium depletion, ERK modulation and cell-selective apoptosis

2022

Vanadium toxicology is a topic of considerable importance as this metal is widely used in industrial and biomedical fields. However, it represents a potential emerging environmental pollutant because wastewater treatment plants do not adequately remove metal compounds that are subsequently released into the environment. Vanadium applications are limited due to its toxicity, so it is urgent to define this aspect. This metal is associated with sea urchin embryo toxicity as it perturbs embryogenesis and skeletogenesis, triggering several stress responses. Here we investigated its bioaccumulation and the correlation with cellular and molecular developmental pathways. We used cytotoxic concentra…

Early asymmetric cues triggering the dorsal/ventral gene regulatory network of the sea urchin embryo

2014

Dorsal/ventral (DV) patterning of the sea urchin embryo relies on a ventrally-localized organizer expressing Nodal, a pivotal regulator of the DV gene regulatory network. However, the inceptive mechanisms imposing the symmetry-breaking are incompletely understood. In Paracentrotus lividus, the Hbox12 homeodomain-containing repressor is expressed by prospective dorsal cells, spatially facing and preceding the onset of nodal transcription. We report that Hbox12 misexpression provokes DV abnormalities, attenuating nodal and nodal-dependent transcription. Reciprocally, impairing hbox12 function disrupts DV polarity by allowing ectopic expression of nodal. Clonal loss-of-function, inflicted by b…

EFFECT OF Γ-AMINOBUTYRRIC ACID (GABA) EXPOSURE ON EMBRYOGENESIS OF PARACENTROTUS LIVIDUS AND IDENTIFICATION OF GABA-RECEPTOR GENES IN SEA URCHINS

2015

Developmental processes are controlled by regulatory genes encoding for transcription factors and signaling molecules. Functional relationships between these genes are described by gene regulatory networks (GRN), models which allow integration of various levels of information. The sea urchin embryo is an experimental model system which offers many advantages for the analysis of GRN. Recently, the GRN that governs the biomineralization of the sea urchin embryonic skeleton has begun to be deciphered. Preliminary evidence suggest that the γ- aminobutyric acid (GABA) signaling pathway is involved in skeletal morphogenesis during development of the sea urchin. GABA is a molecule synthesized by n…

Autophagy induction in sea urchin embryos exposed to gadolinium ions

2014

Sea urchin embryos are highly sensitive to several kinds of stressors, and able to activate different defense strategies. Gadolinium (Gd) is a metal of the lanthanide series of the elements: its chelates are employed as contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging since the 1980s. Gd complexes are released in the aquatic environment, making Gd an emergent environmental pollutant. In this study we focused on the effects of Gd ions on sea urchin embryos development. The study was conducted looking at three different processes: general development, apoptosis and autophagy. At the whole morphological level, Paracentrotus lividus sea urchin embryos continuously exposed to Gd ions displayed mor…

Gadolinium induces autophagy in sea urchin embryos

2014

Turning waste into gold: Sustainable feed made of discards from the food industries promotes gonad development and colouration in the commercial sea …

2021

Abstract Development of sustainable aquaculture practices is a suitable solution to reduce the pressure on overexploited stocks of the Mediterranean sea urchin, Paracentrotus lividus, and to respond to the increasing market demand. To move forward the Blue Growth and following the principles of circular economy, a three-month feeding experiment was conducted to test a sustainable feed based on food processing discards on sea urchins. Two feed formulations differing on the proportions of the two main ingredients (endive outermost leaves and European anchovy discards in a ratio of 60:40 and 80:20 respectively) were prepared and tested on P. lividus gonad yield, development and quality. The re…

An hsf2-like factor is present in the invertebrates: Characterization and purification in sea urchin embryos and its localization in primary mesenchi…

2015

Evidence for a novel cytoplasmic processing event in ribosome maturation in the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus

2010

In this work, we demonstrate the existence of a cytoplasmic processing step, never before described, involving both the pre-ribosomal subunits in the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus. Northern-blot hybridization, primer extension, S1 mapping experiments and in situ hybridizations allowed us to demonstrate that cytoplasmic processed particles are successively re-imported into the nucleus, where maturation of their RNAs is completed prior to being exported to the cytoplasm. Our findings lead to the proposal of a new model of ribosome maturation and shuttling. Moreover, preliminary data from our laboratory suggest that the maturation pathway we propose in P. lividus may not be unique to the se…

A member of the Tlr family is involved in dsRNA innate immune response in Paracentrotus lividus sea urchin

2015

Abstract The innate immune response involves proteins such as the membrane receptors of the Toll-like family (TLRs), which trigger different intracellular signalling pathways that are dependent on specific stimulating molecules. In sea urchins, TLR proteins are encoded by members of a large multigenic family composed of 60–250 genes in different species. Here, we report a newly identified mRNA sequence encoding a TLR protein (referred to as Pl-Tlr) isolated from Paracentrotus lividus immune cells. The partial protein sequence contained the conserved Toll/IL-1 receptor (TIR) domain, the transmembrane domain and part of the leucine repeats. Phylogenetic analysis of the Pl-Tlr protein was acco…

Identification and characterization of PlAlix, the Alix homologue from the Mediterranean sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus.

2013

The sea urchin provides a relatively simple and tractable system for analyzing the early stages of embryo development. Here, we use the sea urchin species, Paracentrotus lividus, to investigate the role of Alix in key stages of embryogenesis, namely the egg fertilization and the first cleavage division. Alix is a multifunctional protein involved in different cellular processes including endocytic membrane trafficking, filamentous (F)-actin remodeling, and cytokinesis. Alix homologues have been identified in different metazoans; in these organisms, Alix is involved in oogenesis and in determination/differentiation events during embryo development. Herein, we describe the identification of th…