skeptic
28th November 2006, 10:10 AM
Unraveling the sea urchin genome has yielded striking similarities and surprising differences between sea urchins and humans," said Judith Venuti, program director in NSF's Integrative Organismal Biology Division. Sea urchins are echinoderms (Greek for spiny skin), marine animals that originated over 540 million years ago and include starfish, brittle stars, sea lilies, and sea cucumbers. Following the great extinction of animals 250 million years ago, the modern sea urchins emerged as dominant echinoderm species. The purple sea urchin emerged in the North Pacific Ocean during a rapid burst of speciation and diversification 15-20 million years ago.
There was great interest in the sea urchin as a target for genome sequencing because these animals share a common ancestor with humans, scientists said. That ancestor lived over 540 million years ago and gave rise to the Deuterostomes, the super phylum of animals that includes phyla such as echinoderms and chordates, the phylum to which humans and other vertebrates belong.
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=108174&org=olpa&from=news
There was great interest in the sea urchin as a target for genome sequencing because these animals share a common ancestor with humans, scientists said. That ancestor lived over 540 million years ago and gave rise to the Deuterostomes, the super phylum of animals that includes phyla such as echinoderms and chordates, the phylum to which humans and other vertebrates belong.
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=108174&org=olpa&from=news