Comparing the Human and Sea Urchin Genomes

R Andrew Cameron, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA

Published online: July 2008

DOI: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0020745

Sea urchins belong to a group of animals that diverged from the lineage leading to humans very early. In that capacity their genomes reflect basic qualities of this lineage and inform to a deep reach of time the evolutionary changes leading to in the human genome. Surprisingly, the invention of new genes in this evolutionary path is subordinate to the diverse changes in the abundance of genes in existing families.

Keywords: deuterostomes; echinoderms; phylogeny; protein family evolution

Figure 1. An abbreviated tree of the bilaterian phyla showing the deuterostome groups in more detail. See text for details.
Figure 2. A diagram of multiple reciprocal BLAST comparisons among selected metazoan gene sets. The number of matches is indicated in the boxes over arrows and the number of gene predictions is shown under each species name. Abbreviations: Hs, Homo sapiens; Mm, Mus musculus; Ci, Ciona intestinalis; Sp, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus; Nv, Nematostella vectensis; Dm, Drosophila melanogaster; Ce, Caenorhabditis elegans. Adapted from Materna (2006).
Figure 3. A diagram of the Hox cluster gene order including the nearby gene positions. The Hox genes are indicated by their paralogue group numbers and the direction of transcription is shown by the grey arrows. The BAC clone ID numbers included in the sequence segment from each haplotype is indicated above the arrow for that haplotype. There is a 50 kb overlap between the two haplotypes in the sequence. Adapted from Cameron et al. (2006).
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    Cameron RA, Rowen L, Nesbitt R et al. (2006) Unusual gene order and organization of the sea urchin Hox cluster. Journal of Experimental Zoology. Part B. Molecular and Developmental Evolution 304B: 1–14.
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 Further Reading
    Arnone MI, Rizzo F and Annunciata R (2006) Genetic organization and embryonic expression of the ParaHox genes in the sea urchin S. purpuratus: insights into the relationship between clustering and colinearity. Developmental Biology 300: 63–73.
    Bourlat SJ, Juliusdottir T and Lowe CJ (2006) Deuterostome phylogeny reveals monophyletic chordates and the new phylum Xenoturbellida. Nature 444: 85–88.
    Bradham CA, Foltz KR, McClay DR et al. (2006) The sea urchin kinome: a first look. Developmental Biology 300: 180–193.
    Ebert TA and Southon JR (2003) Red sea urchins (Strongylocentrotus franciscanus) can live over 100 years: confirmation with A-bomb 14-carbon. Fishery Bulletin 101: 915–922.
    Hibino T, Loza-Coll MA and Messier C (2006) The immune gene repertoire encoded in the purple sea urchin genome. Developmental Biology 300: 349–365.
    Meyer A and Schartl M (1999) Gene and genome duplications in vertebrates: the one-to-four(-to-eight in fish) rule and the evolution of novel gene functions. Current Opinion in Cell Biology 11: 699–704.
    Raible F, Tessmar-Raible K and Arboleda E (2006) Opsins and clusters of sensory G-protein coupled receptors in the sea urchin genome. Developmental Biology 300: 461–475.
    Rizzo F, Fernandez-Serra M, Squarzoni P, Archimandritis A and Arnone MI (2006) Identification and developmental expression of the ets family in the sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus). Developmental Biology 300: 35–48.
    Tu Q, Brown CT, Davidson EH and Oliveri P (2006) Sea urchin Forkhead gene family: phylogeny and embryonic expression. Developmental Biology 300: 49–62.

Related Sub-Topics:

Evolutionary Genomics | Molecular Evolution | Human Evolution | Evolution of Coding and Functional Modules
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Article Title: Comparing the Human and Sea Urchin Genomes
 
How to Cite close
Cameron, R Andrew(Jul 2008) Comparing the Human and Sea Urchin Genomes. In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0020745]