Transfer of a large gene regulatory apparatus to a new developmental address in echinoid evolution

Of the five echinoderm classes, only the modern sea urchins (euechinoids) generate a precociously specified embryonic micromere lineage that ingresses before gastrulation and then secretes the biomineral embryonic skeleton. The gene regulatory network (GRN) underlying the specification and differentiation of this lineage is now known. Many of the same differentiation genes as are used in the biomineralization of the embryo skeleton are also used to make the similar biomineral of the spines and test plates of the adult body. Here, we determine the components of the regulatory state upstream of these differentiation genes that are shared between embryonic and adult skeletogenesis. An abrupt “break point” in the micromere GRN is thus revealed, on one side of which most of the regulatory genes are used in both, and on the other side of which the regulatory apparatus is entirely micromere-specific. This reveals the specific linkages of the micromere GRN forged in the evolutionary process by which the skeletogenic gene batteries were caused to be activated in the embryonic micromere lineage. We also show, by comparison with adult skeletogenesis in the sea star, a distant echinoderm outgroup, that the regulatory apparatus responsible for driving the skeletogenic differentiation gene batteries is an ancient pleisiomorphic aspect of the echinoderm-specific regulatory heritage.

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