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Published February 1, 2013 | Accepted Version + Supplemental Material
Journal Article Open

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

Abstract

The regulation of oral–aboral ectoderm specification in the sea urchin embryo has been extensively studied in recent years. The oral–aboral polarity is initially imposed downstream of a redox gradient induced by asymmetric maternal distribution of mitochondria. Two TGF-β signaling pathways, Nodal and BMP, are then respectively utilized in the generation of oral and aboral regulatory states. However, a causal understanding of the regulation of aboral ectoderm specification has been lacking. In this work control of aboral ectoderm regulatory state specification was revealed by combining detailed regulatory gene expression studies, perturbation and cis-regulatory analyses. Our analysis illuminates a dynamic system where different factors dominate at different developmental times. We found that the initial activation of aboral genes depends directly on the redox sensitive transcription factor, hypoxia inducible factor 1α (HIF-1α). Two BMP ligands, BMP2/4 and BMP5/8, then significantly enhance aboral regulatory gene transcription. Ultimately, encoded feedback wiring lockdown the aboral ectoderm regulatory state. Our study elucidates the different regulatory mechanisms that sequentially dominate the spatial localization of aboral regulatory states.

Additional Information

© 2012 Elsevier Inc. Received 9 October 2012. Received in revised form 10 November 2012. Accepted 15 November 2012. Available online 2 December 2012. Research was supported by NIH grant HD-037105 to EHD and by National Science Council grants 99-2627-B-001-003 and 101-2923-B-001-004-MY2 to YS.

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Accepted Version - nihms426667.pdf

Supplemental Material - mmc1.pdf

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