Publications by authors named "P Dru"
Article Synopsis
- A model organism in developmental biology is defined by its research-friendly characteristics and community-created resources, but there are still very few widely used systems, particularly among certain species like the Spiralia.
- Researchers have developed a comprehensive developmental transcriptome for the bivalve mollusk Mytilus galloprovincialis, enhancing the experimental protocols available for studying this organism.
- This transcriptome allows for better understanding of developmental progression and enables comparative studies with other bivalves, while new techniques for gene expression mapping provide critical resources for advancing Mytilus galloprovincialis as a viable model system in developmental biology.
During early development of the sea urchin embryo, activation of ERK signalling in mesodermal precursors is not triggered by extracellular RTK ligands but by a cell-autonomous, RAS-independent mechanism that was not understood. We discovered that in these cells, ERK signalling is activated through the transcriptional activation of a gene encoding a protein related to Kinase Suppressor of Ras, that we named KSR3. KSR3 belongs to a family of catalytically inactive allosteric activators of RAF.
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- Sea urchins serve as important models in developmental biology, and researchers created a detailed genome assembly to investigate their unique genetic traits compared to other deuterostomes.
- The study revealed that sea urchins maintain ancestral chromosome linkages but experience rapid shuffling of gene order, alongside a significant increase in gene duplication in their lineage.
- Key discoveries include the evolution of new structures from these duplicated genes and the conservation of certain gene-regulatory modules between sea urchins and chordates, indicating a shared developmental framework despite significant genomic changes.
Members of the wnt gene family encode secreted glycoproteins that mediate critical intercellular communications in metazoans. Large-scale genome and transcriptome analyses have shown that this family is composed of 13 distinct subfamilies. These analyses have further established that the number of wnt genes per subfamily varies significantly between metazoan phyla, highlighting that gene duplication and gene loss events have shaped the complements of wnt genes during evolution.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJellyfish (medusae) are a distinctive life-cycle stage of medusozoan cnidarians. They are major marine predators, with integrated neurosensory, muscular and organ systems. The genetic foundations of this complex form are largely unknown.
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