The 1997-98 El Niño event was the most severe on record, resulting in record elevated water temperatures across much of the world’s tropical ocean regions. This event triggered extensive bleaching of coral reefs world-wide, but little information is available on the impact of this major global event on the non-coral invertebrates associated with reef systems. Here, we report the results of a 6 ...

Early embryogenesis has been examined experimentally in several echinoderm and hemichordate classes. Although these studies suggest that the mechanisms which underlie regional specification have been highly conserved within the echinoderm + hemichordate clade, nothing is known about these mechanisms in several other echinoderm classes, including the Ophiuroidea. In this study, early embryogenes...

BACKGROUND Recent genomic information has revealed that neuroglobin and cytoglobin are the two principal lineages of vertebrate hemoglobins, with the latter encompassing the familiar myoglobin and α-globin/β-globin tetramer hemoglobin, and several minor groups. In contrast, very little is known about hemoglobins in echinoderms, a phylum of exclusively marine organisms closely related to vertebr...

Although the development of sea urchin embryos has been studied extensively and clearly involves both cell adhesion and cell migration, rather little is known about the adhesion receptors and extracellular matrix molecules involved. The completion of the genome of Strongylocentrotus purpuratus allows a comprehensive survey of the complement of cell-cell and cell-matrix adhesion molecules in thi...

SCHALEK and Szegvary, and Svedberg, have recently described remarkable instances of sudden liquefaction of inorganic colloidal gels which have a striking analogy in the collapse of the gel structure of the protoplasm of a dividing echinoderm egg when the latter is subjected to mechanical pressure. It is the purpose of this paper to call attention to this analogy. Regional Changes in Protoplasmi...

Submit Manuscript | http://medcraveonline.com system. Immunocytochemical positive reactions were observed in 1973 in the sea star Asterina gibbosa (Asterid, Echinoderm) after injections of various proteins [1]. It seemed interesting to look for similar reactions in the Ophuirid: Ophiocomina nigra (another echinoderm) which possesses also an axial organ. The sea star axial organ, an ancestral ly...