Gene regulatory control in the sea urchin aboral ectoderm: spatial initiation, signaling inputs, and cell fate lockdown

Novel animal pole-enriched maternal mRNAs are preferentially expressed in neural ectoderm

BACKGROUND

Many animals utilize maternal mRNAs to pre-pattern the embryo before the onset of zygotic transcription. In Xenopus laevis, vegetal factors specify the germ line, endoderm, and dorsal axis, but there are few studies demonstrating roles for animal-enriched maternal mRNAs. Therefore, we carried out a microarray analysis to identify novel maternal transcripts enriched in 8-cell-stage animal blastomeres.

RESULTS

We identified 39 mRNAs isolated from 8-cell animal blastomeres that are >4-fold enriched compared to vegetal pole mRNAs. We characterized 14 of these that are of unknown function. We validated the microarray results for 8/14 genes by qRT-PCR and for 14/14 genes by in situ hybridization assays. Because no developmental functions are reported yet, we provide the expression patterns for each of the 14 genes. Each is expressed in the animal hemisphere of unfertilized eggs, 8-cell animal blastomeres, and diffusely in blastula animal cap ectoderm, gastrula ectoderm and neural ectoderm, neural crest (and derivatives) and cranial placodes (and derivatives). They have varying later expression in some mesodermal and endodermal tissues in tail bud through larval stages.

CONCLUSIONS

Novel animal-enriched maternal mRNAs are preferentially expressed in ectodermal derivatives, particularly neural ectoderm. However, they are later expressed in derivatives of other germ layers.

New regulatory circuit controlling spatial and temporal gene expression in the sea urchin embryo oral ectoderm GRN

The sea urchin oral ectoderm gene regulatory network (GRN) model has increased in complexity as additional genes are added to it, revealing its multiple spatial regulatory state domains. The formation of the oral ectoderm begins with an oral-aboral redox gradient, which is interpreted by the cis-regulatory system of the nodal gene to cause its expression on the oral side of the embryo. Nodal signaling drives cohorts of regulatory genes within the oral ectoderm and its derived subdomains. Activation of these genes occurs sequentially, spanning the entire blastula stage. During this process the stomodeal subdomain emerges inside of the oral ectoderm, and bilateral subdomains defining the lateral portions of the future ciliary band emerge adjacent to the central oral ectoderm. Here we examine two regulatory genes encoding repressors, sip1 and ets4, which selectively prevent transcription of oral ectoderm genes until their expression is cleared from the oral ectoderm as an indirect consequence of Nodal signaling. We show that the timing of transcriptional de-repression of sip1 and ets4 targets which occurs upon their clearance explains the dynamics of oral ectoderm gene expression. In addition two other repressors, the direct Nodal target not, and the feed forward Nodal target goosecoid, repress expression of regulatory genes in the central animal oral ectoderm thereby confining their expression to the lateral domains of the animal ectoderm. These results have permitted construction of an enhanced animal ectoderm GRN model highlighting the repressive interactions providing precise temporal and spatial control of regulatory gene expression.