![]() In mice, knocking out Six1/2 causes kidneys to form abnormally. For example, she found that a gene called Six1/2 serves as a key regulator of the branching process in tube formation. In addition to providing insights into the fundamental process that leads to organ formation, sea stars can serve as a model for much biomedical research, Perillo suggests. "So, this means that this mechanism of making organs was already established at the base" or root of the evolution of chordates, she said. In the case of the sea star, "I found that, in order for tube formation, cells can proliferate and migrate at the same time," as they do in vertebrate development. In other animals, including mammals, cell proliferation and migration occur together. In some organisms such as flies, "there is a big round of cell proliferation before all the cells start to make very complex migration patterns to elongate, change their shapes, and become a tube," she said. One open question in biology was exactly how organisms develop from one cell into the complex 3D tubular structures of various organs, Perillo said. (Chordates include the vertebrates - fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals - and a few invertebrate subphyla). Her study defines a basic toolkit from which the chordate tubular organs may have developed. Using CRISPR and other techniques to analyze gene function, as well as long time-lapse movies of the developing sea star larvae, Perillo and colleagues ascertained how this organism generates tubes that branch out from its gut. So I needed an animal that was at the base along the tree of life, before the chordates," she said. Perillo chose the sea star as a research organism "because I wanted to understand the basic mechanism of tube formation that is conserved across all vertebrates. So, tubulogenesis is a very basic step to form all our organs," Perillo said. And more complex organs like the heart start as a tube and then develop different structures. "Most of our organs are tubular, because they need to transport fluids or gases or food or blood. In the May 9 issue of Nature Communications, Margherita Perillo of the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) and collaborators reveal in detail the initiation and early stages of tube formation in the sea star Patiria miniata. Despite its fundamental importance, the general mechanisms of hollow tube formation during embryogenesis are not well understood, due to the great diversity of strategies that animals use to form tubular structures.Įnter the sea star, an ancient marine creature whose process of tubulogenesis is relatively easy to study, and which is becoming an important organism for understanding the genetics and mechanics of tube formation.
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