9th Annual Workshop, October 28-31, 1999
Co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy
GOJOBORI
A gene expression profile obtained by determining over 1000 cDNA clones from a single Planarian eye cell
Takashi Gojobori1, Kazuho Ikeo, Silvana Gaudieri1, Akira Tazaki2, Masumi Nakazawa1, Masafumi Shimoda3, Yuzuru Tanaka4, and Kiyokazu Agata2
1Center for Information Biology, National Institute of Genetics
2Department of Life Science, Himeji Institute of Technology
3Hitachi Software Engineering Co., Ltd.
4Electronic and Information Engineering, Hokkaido University, Japan
Planarians are considered to be the most primitive animal that have acquired a central nervous system (CNS) with longitudinal nerve and sense organs, and their anterior-posterior axis is very similar to vertebrates and higher invertebrates. It has been suggested that the brains of deuterosomes and proteosomes descended from a common ancestor and that common regulatory and important genes have been conserved between vertebrates and invertebrates. Therefore, Planarians are an important model in understanding the brain and its related processes. Here we present the gene expression profile of the Planarian eye obtained by determining over 1000 cDNA clones from a single eye cell. We then discuss functional and evolutionary significance of the gene expression profile obtained, along with the perspective of this kind of analysis.