Expression of AmKrox, a starfish ortholog of a sea urchin transcription factor essential for endomesodermal specification
- Creators
- Hinman, Veronica F.
- Davidson, Eric H.
Abstract
The sea urchin zinc finger transcription factor SpKrox is a regulatory gene that functions early in endomesodermal specification. We report here the cloning and expression of an ortholog of this gene, AmKrox, from the starfish Asterina miniata. The echinoderm Krox proteins belong to a class of transcription factors that includes the vertebrate Blimp-1 proteins and two putative insect proteins. AmKrox is expressed in a ring around the vegetal pole of the blastula. During gastrulation, expression is detected surrounding the blastopore and in the posterior archenteron. In the early bipinnaria larva transcripts are detected in the midgut and hindgut. Despite differences in early development of sea urchins and starfish, the expression of these Krox transcription factors is highly conserved.
Additional Information
© 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. We are very grateful to Carolina Livi for providing us with a cloned fragment of SpKrox cDNA and details of the expression and function of SpKrox transcripts during S. purpuratus embryogenesis. Miki Yun helped with sequencing putative AmKrox clones. We also thank Pat Leahy and the staff at Kerckhoff Marine Labs for starfish maintenance. This work was supported by NASA/Ames grants NAG 2-1541 and NAG 2-1368 to EHD.Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 63639
- DOI
- 10.1016/S1567-133X(03)00083-8
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20160113-122350305
- NAG 2-1541
- NASA
- NAG 2-1368
- NASA
- Created
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2016-01-13Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field