Biology subjects

Rottinger, E.

Publications and source records attributed to Rottinger, E..

6 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2024

The rich evolutionary history of the ROS metabolic arsenal shapes its mechanistic plasticity at the onset of metazoan regeneration

Regeneration, the ability to restore body parts after injury, is widespread in metazoans; however, the underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms involved in this process remain largely unknown, and its evolutionary history is consequently unresolved. In the last decade, ROS have emerged as shared actors that trigger apoptosis and cell proliferation to drive regenerative success in a few metazoan models. However, it is not known whether the contribution of ROS to regeneration relies on conserved mechanisms in animals. Here we performed a comparative genomic analysis of ROS metabolism actors across metazoans, and carried out a comparative study for the deployment and roles of ROS during regeneration in two different research models: the annelid Platynereis dumerilii and the cnidarian Nematostella vectensis. We established that the vast majority of metazoans possess a core redox kit allowing for the production and detoxification of ROS, and overall regulation of ROS levels. However, the precise composition of the redox arsenal can vary drastically from species to species, suggesting that evolutionary constraints apply to ROS metabolism functions rather than precise actors. We found that ROS are produced during and are necessary for regeneration in both Platynereis and Nematostella. However, we also uncovered different enzymatic activities underlying ROS dynamics, as well as distinct effects of ROS signalling on injury-induced apoptosis and cell proliferation in the two species. We conclude that, while ROS are a robust feature of metazoan regeneration, their production and contribution to this phenomenon may depend on plastic molecular mechanisms.

developmental biology↗

bioRxiv2023

Optimized husbandry and targeted gene-editing for the cnidarian Nematostella vectensis

Optimized laboratory conditions for research models are crucial for the success of scientific projects. This includes the control of the entire life cycle, access to all developmental stages and maintaining stable physiological conditions. Reducing the life cycle of a research model can also enhance the access to biological material and speed up genetic tool development. Thus, we optimized the rearing conditions for the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis, a cnidarian research model to study embryonic and post-metamorphic processes, such as regeneration. We adopted a semi-automated aquaculture system for N. vectensis and developed a dietary protocol optimized for the different life stages. Thereby, we increased spawning efficiencies and post-spawning survival rates, and considerably reduced the overall life cycle down to two months. To further improve the obtention of CRISPR-Cas9 mutants, we optimized the design of sgRNAs leading to full KO animals in F0 polyps using a single sgRNA. Finally, we show that NHEJ-mediated transgene insertion is possible in N. vectensis. In sum our study provides additional resources for the scientific community that uses or will use N. vectensis as a research model. Summary statementOptimized life cycle, in combination with efficient gene-editing approaches facilitates the establishment of genetic tools in N. vectensis, an emerging model for environmental stress response, regeneration, and longevity.

developmental biology↗

bioRxiv2022

Open science resources from the Tara Pacific expedition across coral reef and surface ocean ecosystems

AbstractThe Tara Pacific expedition (2016-2018) sampled coral ecosystems around 32 islands in the Pacific Ocean and the ocean surface waters at 249 locations, resulting in the collection of nearly 58,000 samples. The expedition was designed to systematically study warm coral reefs and included the collection of corals, fish, plankton, and seawater samples for advanced biogeochemical, molecular, and imaging analysis. Here we provide a complete description of the sampling methodology, and we explain how to explore and access the different datasets generated by the expedition. Environmental context data were obtained from taxonomic registries, gazetteers, almanacs, climatologies, operational biogeochemical models, and satellite observations. The quality of the different environmental measures has been validated not only by various quality control steps but also through a global analysis allowing the comparison with known environmental large-scale structures. Such a wide released datasets opens the perspective to address a wide range of scientific questions.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2020

Evolutionary Emergence of First Animal Organisms Triggered by Environmental Mechano-Biochemical Marine Stimulation

The evolutionary emergence of the first animals is thought to have been intimately associated to the formation of a primitive endomesodermal gut (i.e gastrulation) from ancestral multi-cellular spheres, blastulae, more than 700 million years ago. However, the biochemical cues having been at the origin of endomesoderm formation remain a mystery. Here we find that hydrodynamic mechanical strains developed by sea wavelets on pre-bilaterian Nematostella vectensis and pre-metazoan Choanoeca flexa representatives, which common ancestor dates back to more than 700 million years ago, can trigger gastrulation in a Myo-II dependent mechanotransductive process. Gastrulation in turn induces endomesoderm first biochemical specification through the mechanical activation of the {beta}cat pathway in pre-bilaterian Nematostella vectensis, like in Drosophila and zebrafish embryos, which common ancestor dates back to 600-700 million years ago. These observations converge to animal emergence that has been mechanotransductively triggered by wavelet mechanical strains on the sea-shore in multicellular choanoflagellates through Myo-II more than 700 million years ago, a process achieved in first metazoan through mechanosensitive Y654-containing {beta}cat evolutionary emergence found as conserved in all metazoan. One sentence summaryMarine hydrodynamic strains have activated first gastric organ formation from ancestral pre-animal cell colonies.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2019

Synergic coordination of stem cells is required to induce a regenerative response in anthozoan cnidarians

Little is known about the origin of the inductive signal that translates the amputation stress into a cooperative cellular response. By studying the process underlying the reformation of lost body parts in the anthozoan cnidarian Nematostella vectensis, we identified a regeneration-inducing structure that, via a tissue crosstalk, is responsible for the initiation of the repair program. We further revealed for the first time in anthozoan cnidarians, that fast and slow-cycling/quiescent stem cells respond to the amputation stress and actively participate in the reformation of lost body parts. Importantly, a synergic interaction of both stem cell populations is required to complete the regeneration process. Our findings suggest that the emergence/loss of structure complexity/compartmentalization influences the proprieties of tissue plasticity, changes the competence of a tissue to reprogram and, in the context of regeneration, the capacity of the tissue to emit or respond to a regeneration-inducing signal.

developmental biology↗

bioRxiv2018

NvERTx: A gene expression database to compare Embryogenesis and Regeneration in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis

For more than a century researchers have been comparing embryogenesis and regeneration hoping that lessons learned from embryonic development will unlock hidden regenerative potential. This problem has historically been a difficult one to investigate since the best regenerative model systems are poor embryonic models and vice versa. Recently however, the comparison of embryogenesis and regeneration has seen renewed interest as emerging models including the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis have allowed researchers to investigate these processes in the same organism. This interest has been further fueled by the advent of high-throughput transcriptomic analyses that provide virtual mountains of data. Unfortunately much of this data remains in raw unanalyzed formats that are difficult to access or browse. Here we present Nematostella vectensis Embryogenesis and Regeneration Transcriptomics - NvERTx, the first platform for comparing gene expression during embryogenesis and regeneration. NvERTx is comprised of close to 50 RNAseq datasets spanning embryogenesis and regeneration in Nematostella. These data were used to perform a robust de novo transcriptome assembly which users can search, BLAST and plot expression of multiple genes during these two developmental processes. The site is also home to the results of gene clustering analyses, to further mine the data and identify groups of co-expressed genes. The site can be accessed at http://nvertx.kahikai.org.

developmental biology↗