The Cnidarian Genetic Toolkit

University Of California-Irvine, Irvine CA

Investigators

Abstract

0120591 Bode It is becoming increasingly clear that understanding how an organism interacts with its environment will require a complete accounting of the genes which make up the organism and the expression patterns of the genes under various conditions. Members of the phylum Cnidaria (jellyfish, corals, sea anemones, and hydras) are key members of their environments, yet very little is known about their genetic makeup. To address this problem, a collection of cloned DNAs representing the messenger RNA populations (cDNAs) of two well-studied cnidarians will be generated. The two organisms that will be used are the freshwater cnidarian Hydra and the colonial marine cnidarian Podocoryne. Bacteria containing the cloned cDNAs will be robotically arrayed to generate archives of the clones. Sequence data will be obtained from approximately 50,000 of the cDNA clones from each organism. The resulting sequence data will be analyzed in various ways using bioinformatic computing tools. The analyses will provide information on what genes are present in cnidarians and how those genes are evolutionarily related to those in animals which diverged more recently than cnidarians, such as vertebrates and insects. Such information will be very valuable for defining the processes by which multicellular animals have evolved. The availability of cloned cDNA sets from two model cnidarians will also make it possible to examine the expression of large numbers of genes in these organisms using the technique of DNA array analysis. In particular it will be possible to identify genes whose expression changes when the organisms are placed under conditions which reflect those present during periods of environmental stress (e.g. elevated temperature). Genes whose expression levels change under stress conditions in the laboratory may be useful tools for monitoring the health of cnidarians (e.g. corals) in their natural setting.