The Sea Urchin Genome
Special online collection >> http://www.sciencemag.org/sciext/seaurchin/

The sea urchin has been a major experimental model for over a century, contributing to fundamental principles of cell biology, developmental biology, and gene regulation. In the 10 Nov 2006 issue, Science and its online companion Signal Transduction Knowledge Environment (STKE) described the sequencing of the genome of the purple sea urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus and new insights into the animal’s evolution and development. A Research Article and Report in Science detailed the sea urchin genome and transcriptome, while Review and Perspective articles explored the ecological role of purple sea urchins, genomic insights into their complex immune systems, and paleogenomic studies of sea urchins and their spiny skinned relatives. Articles in STKE looked at the signaling mechanisms involved in sea urchin embryogenesis. Also on Science Online, videos http://www.sciencemag.org/multimedia/video/index.dtl featuring sea urchin biologist D. McClay highlighted the historical significance of the sea urchin; an interactive poster http://www.sciencemag.org/sciext/seaurchin/poster/ offered additional images, movies, and a collection of Web resources; and a podcast segment http://www.sciencemag.org/about/podcast.dtl#20061110 featured an interview with project leader E. H. Davidson about the genome sequencing effort.