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QINGDAO, China: Researchers at the Institute of Oceanology Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed a new high-definition sequence of the sea cucumber’s genetic material, or genome. Owing to the sea cucumber’s capacity to regrow body parts and internal organs, knowledge of its genome could aid the understanding of regeneration and determine whether its regrowth capability can offer insights into tissue regeneration and other areas of human medicine.
In the study, the researchers obtained a reference genome covering approximately 91.47 per cent of the genome size. The knowledge of the complete genome of a sea cucumber could potentially provide a unique framework for studies that seek to understand cell and tissue regeneration, treat organ failure and alleviate symptoms of ageing.
Sea cucumbers form one class of echinoderms, a group of marine animals that includes sea urchins and starfish too. Echinoderms and chordates (a closely related group under which humans fall) share a feature that distinguishes them from most other animals: they are deuterostomes, a group in which the anus, rather than the mouth, forms first in development. Sea cucumbers are unique among echinoderms in that they do not have a hardened calcium exoskeleton and they have the capacity to regenerate damaged or lost body parts and viscera to a much greater extent than sea urchins or starfish.
As a strategy to scare off predators, sea cucumbers can expel their viscera, which they can then regenerate within several weeks. The researchers found a group of duplicated genes, which they termed PSP94-like genes, that were specifically expressed in the regenerating intestines of the sea cucumber and had no corresponding genes in other echinoderms, suggesting that these genes may be crucial to the animals’ ability to quickly regrow their viscera. A second group of genes, called fibrinogen-related proteins, were also duplicated and highly expressed during regeneration, indicating that they likely contribute to this ability as well.
In addition to possible medical benefits, the genome sequence helps explain why the sea cucumber has such a radically different skeletal structure from other echinoderms and may be useful for understanding evolution of the animal kingdom.
The study, titled “The sea cucumber genome provides insights into morphological evolution and visceral regeneration”, was published in the open-access journal PLOS Biology on 12 October.
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