Premium
Characterization of retinoic acid components during intestinal regeneration of the sea cucumber Holothuria glaberrima
Author(s) -
Loperena Roxana,
Garcia-Arraras Jose Enrique
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.26.1_supplement.lb97
Subject(s) - sea cucumber , biology , apostichopus japonicus , retinoic acid , complementary dna , lytechinus variegatus , evisceration (ophthalmology) , regeneration (biology) , blastema , microbiology and biotechnology , sea urchin , biochemistry , gene , pathology , ecology , medicine , alternative medicine
Holothurians possess the striking ability to regenerate most of their internal organs following evisceration. After a wound‐healing process, a new digestive system forms in about a month. Many proteins and enzymes are essential for this process but, much is still unknown. Our focus is to study the organogenesis and neurogenesis during the regenerating stages of the sea cucumber Holothuria glaberrima. Retinoic acid (RA) is a vitamin A metabolite important for mediating growth and development in chordates. RA has been shown to play a role during the early stages of tail and spinal cord regeneration from newts. Endogenous RA synthesis includes the action of alcohol and retinaldehyde dehydrogenases (RALDHs). We hypothesized that during the early stages of the sea cucumber's visceral regeneration greater gene expression of RA proteins would be detected. We used bioinformatics to identify mRNAs for these proteins in our organism's cDNA library and found contigs homologous to RALDH1. The holothurian sequence was 72% identical and 87% similar to the sea urchin S. purpuratus. We prepared primers and performed PCRs using cDNA of H. glaberrima normal and regenerated intestines. RALDH1 mRNA expression was detected in normal and day 3, 5, and 7 post‐evisceration suggesting possible presence of the enzyme in the tissue. Therefore, RA signaling might be playing an important role during intestinal regeneration of the sea cucumber.