Postembryonic segregation of the germ line in sea urchins in relation to indirect development
Abstract
The four small micromeres of the sea urchin embryo contribute only to the coelomic sacs, which produce major components of the adult body plan during postembryonic development. To test the proposition that the small micromeres are the definitive primordial germ cell lineage of the sea urchin, we deleted their 4th cleavage parents, and raised the deleted embryos through larval life and metamorphosis to sexual maturity. Almost all of the experimental animals produced functional gametes, excluding the possibility that the germ cell lineage arises exclusively and obligatorily from descendants of the small micromeres; rather, the germ cell lineage arises during the postembryonic development of the rudiment. A survey of the literature indicates that there is no known case of an embryonic primordial germ cell lineage in a bilaterian species that displays maximal indirect development.
Additional Information
© 1996 National Academy of Sciences. Contributed by Eric H. Davidson, March 15, 1996. We are pleased to acknowledge the expert husbandry exercised by Mr. Patrick Leahy, which enabled us to raise the experimental animals, described in this paper, to sexual maturity. We also acknowledge the extremely helpful reviews of this manuscript provided by Dr. Kevin Peterson (University of California, Los Angeles) and Profs. Ellen Rothenberg (California Institute of Technology) and James W. Posakony (University of California, San Diego). This work was supported by Grant RR-06591 from the Division of Research Resources of the National Institutes of Health. The publication costs of this article were defrayed in part by page charge payment. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. §1734 solely to indicate this fact.Attached Files
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Additional details
- PMCID
- PMC39100
- Eprint ID
- 35098
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20121025-114107124
- NIH
- RR-06591
- Created
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2012-10-25Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field