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Nervous system development of two crinoid species, the sea lily Metacrinus rotundus and the feather star Oxycomanthus japonicus

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Abstract

Nervous system development in echinoderms has been well documented, especially for sea urchins and starfish. However, that of crinoids, the most basal group of extant echinoderms, has been poorly studied due to difficulties in obtaining their larvae. In this paper, we report nervous system development from two species of crinoids, from hatching to late doliolaria larvae in the sea lily Metacrinus rotundus and from hatching to cystidean stages after settlement in the feather star Oxycomanthus japonicus. The two species showed a similar larval nervous system pattern with an extensive anterior larval ganglion. The ganglion was similar to that in sea urchins which is generally regarded as derived. In contrast with other echinoderm and hemichordate larvae, synaptotagmin antibody 1E11 failed to reveal ciliary band nerve tracts. Basiepithelial nerve cells formed a net-like structure in the M. rotundus doliolaria larvae. In O. japonicus, the larval ganglion was still present 1 day after settlement when the adult nervous system began to appear inside the crown. Stalk nerves originated from the crown and extended down the stalk, but had no connections with the remaining larval ganglion at the base of the stalk. The larval nervous system was not incorporated into the adult nervous system, and the larval ganglion later disappeared. The aboral nerve center, the dominant nervous system in adult crinoids, was formed at the early cystidean stage, considerably earlier than previously suggested. Through comparisons with nervous system development in other ambulacraria, we suggest the possible nervous system development pattern of the echinoderm ancestor and provide new implications on the evolutionary history of echinoderm life cycles.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Drs. Tomoko F. Shibata, Atsuko Sato, Naoki Kuzuno, Yuko Hara, Taku Hibino, and the staff of MMBS for their help in taking care of both adult and larval crinoids. We thank Drs. Tatsuo Oji, Hiroyuki Kaneko, and Michael C. Thorndyke for their useful suggestions and discussions. We thank Drs. Aiko Hirata and Hiroshi Nakagawa for their valuable instructions on SEM. H. N. was supported by the JSPS Research Fellowship for Young Scientists, HFSP Long-Term Fellowship and the Swedish Research Council.

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  1. Hiroaki Nakano

    Present address: Department of Marine Ecology–Kristineberg, University of Gothenburg, Kristineberg 566, 450 34, Fiskebäckskil, Sweden

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Keio University, Yokohama, 223-8521, Japan

    Hiroaki Nakano & Yoko Nakajima

  2. Department of Integrated Biosciences, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba, 277-8562, Japan

    Hiroaki Nakano & Shonan Amemiya

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  1. Hiroaki Nakano
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  2. Yoko Nakajima
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  3. Shonan Amemiya
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Correspondence to Shonan Amemiya.

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Communicated by H. Nishida

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Nakano, H., Nakajima, Y. & Amemiya, S. Nervous system development of two crinoid species, the sea lily Metacrinus rotundus and the feather star Oxycomanthus japonicus . Dev Genes Evol 219, 565–576 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00427-010-0317-5

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