Research Abstract

Echinoderms have long been subjects of great interest due to their extraordinary regeneration capabilities. Due to the fact that they are deuterostomes, they share common ancestry with mammals, including humans. This fact makes the study of these marine animals biomedically relevant. The present study aimed to characterize a putative novel gene family in one such regenerating specimen, the sea cucumber Holothuria glaberrima. These genes were first discovered in data from the mesentery transcriptome, which is believed to be the main tissue related to intestine regeneration. Bioinformatic analyses through computational tools, such as BLAST, allowed the sequence profiling of the mesentery transcripts under study, as well as the discovery of a new sequence expressed exclusively in the radial nerve cord (RNC) transcriptome. These transcripts were matched to the newly minted, draft genome of the sea cucumber Holothuria glaberrima to obtain their complete gene structures. The gene expression profiles for these transcripts were then investigated using differential gene expression (DGE) analysis for the mesentery and RNC transcriptomes. Only two of the members of this novel gene family were found to have significant differential expression during the regeneration of the mesentery, whereas none of the transcripts had significant differential expression when matched to the RNC transcriptome. These data suggest that the novel gene family is not involved in the RNC stress response but may play a role in the regeneration of the mesentery. Future experiments will elucidate this role. In conclusion, this summer research project has successfully characterized various members of a novel family of genes, and the data from this study will be used to direct future research into these genes and their functional roles.