Abstract
Cell–cell interactions play important roles in a variety of developmental processes, and therefore molecules involved in the signaling pathways have been studied extensively. Recently, the draft genome sequence of the basal chordate, Ciona intestinalis, was determined. Here we annotated genes for the signaling pathways of Wnt, transforming growth factor β (TGFβ), Hedgehog, and JAK/STAT in the genome of Ciona intestinalis. The Ciona genome contains ten wnt genes, six frizzled genes, four sFRP genes, ten TGFβ family member genes, five TGFβ-receptor genes, and five Smad genes; most of the genes were found with less redundancy than in vertebrate genomes. The other genes in the signaling pathways are present as a single copy in the Ciona genome. In addition, all of the identified genes for the signaling pathway, except for a few genes, have EST evidence, and their cDNAs are available from the Ciona intestinalis gene collection. Therefore, Ciona intestinalis may provide an experimental system for exploring the basic genetic cascade associated with the signaling pathways in chordates.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bejsovec A (2000) Wnt signaling: an embarrassment of receptors. Curr Biol 10:R919–R922
Boutros M, Mlodzik M (1999) Dishevelled: at the crossroads of divergent intracellular signaling pathways. Mech Dev 83:27–37
Cadigan KM, Nusse R (1997) Wnt signaling: a common theme in animal development. Genes Dev 11:3286–3305
Carstea ED, Morris JA, Coleman KG et al (1997) Niemann-Pick C1 disease gene: homology to mediators of cholesterol homeostasis. Science 277:228–231
Dale L, Jones CM (1999) BMP signalling in early Xenopus development. BioEssays 21:751–760
Darras S, Nishida H (2001) The BMP signaling pathway is required together with the FGF pathway for notochord induction in the ascidian embryo. Development 128:2629–2638
Dehal P, Satou Y, Campbell RK et al (2002) The draft genome of Ciona intestinalis: insights into chordate and vertebrate origins. Science 298:2157–2167
Hill CS (1999) The Smads. Int J Biochem Cell Biol 31:1249–1254
Hsu DR, Economides AN, Wang X, Eimon PM, Harland RM (1998) The Xenopus dorsalizing factor Gremlin identifies a novel family of secreted proteins that antagonize BMP activities. Mol Cell 1:673–683
Imai K, Takada N, Satoh N, Satou Y (2000) β-catenin mediates the specification of endoderm cells in ascidian embryos. Development 127:3009–3020
Jones SE, Jomary C (2002) Secreted Frizzled-related proteins: searching for relationships and patterns. BioEssays 24:811–820
Luo H, Dearolf CR (2001) The JAK/STAT pathway and Drosophila development. BioEssays 23:1138–1147
Miller JR (2002) The Wnts. Genome Biol 3:REVIEWS3001
Miya T, Morita K, Ueno N, Satoh N (1996) An ascidian homologue of vertebrate BMPs-5–8 is expressed in the midline of the anterior neuroectoderm and in the midline of the ventral epidermis of the embryo. Mech Dev 57:181–190
Ogawa K, Ishihara S, Saito Y, Mineta K, Nakazawa M, Ikeo K, Gojobori T, Watanabe K, Agata K (2002) Induction of a noggin-Like gene by ectopic DV interaction during planarian regeneration. Dev Biol 250:59–70
Riddle RD, Johnson RL, Laufer E, Tabin C (1993) Sonic hedgehog mediates the polarizing activity of the ZPA. Cell 75:1401–1416
Satou Y, Imai KS, Satoh N (2001) Early embryonic expression of a LIM-homeobox gene Cs-lhx3 is downstream of β-catenin and responsible for the endoderm differentiation in Ciona savignyi embryos. Development 128:3559–3570
Satou Y, Yamada L, Mochizuki Y, Takatori N, Kawashima T, Sasaki A, Hamaguchi M, Awazu S, Yagi K, Sasakura Y, Nakayama A, Ishikawa H, Inaba K, Satoh N (2002) A cDNA resource from the basal chordate Ciona intestinalis. Genesis 33:153–154
Satou Y, Imai KS, Levine M, Kohara Y, Rokhsar D, Satoh N (2003) A genomewide survey of developmentally relevant genes in Ciona intestinalis. I. Genes for bHLH transcription factors. Dev Genes Evol DOI 10.1007/s00427-003-319-7
Schier AF, Shen MM (2000) Nodal signalling in vertebrate development. Nature 403:385–389
Starr R, Hilton DJ (1999) Negative regulation of the JAK/STAT pathway. BioEssays 21:47–52
Takatori N, Satou Y, Satoh N (2002) Expression of hedgehog genes in Ciona intestinalis embryos. Mech Dev 116:235–238
Zorn AM (2001) Wnt signalling: antagonistic Dickkopfs. Curr Biol 11:R592–R595
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research from MEXT, Japan to Y.S. (13044001) and N.S. (12202001). K.Y. was a Predoctoral Fellows of JSPS with research grant (13003747). We thank Kazuko Hirayama, Chikako Imaizumi, Asako Fujimoto, and Hisayoshi Ishikawa for their technical support.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
The first three authors equally contributed to this work
Edited by D. Tautz
Electronic supplementary material
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hino, K., Satou, Y., Yagi, K. et al. A genomewide survey of developmentally relevant genes in Ciona intestinalis . Dev Genes Evol 213, 264–272 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00427-003-0318-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00427-003-0318-8