Evolution of the fibropellin gene family and patterns of fibropellin gene expression in sea urchin phylogeny.

This study documents evolutionary modifications in the expression patterns of the sea urchin EGF I and EGF III genes, which encode a family of extracellular matrix proteins, the fibropellins. We show that the sea urchin apical lamina, a macromolecular extracellular matrix that surrounds the sea urchin embryo and is made up of the fibropellins, has been conserved through at least 250 million years of echinoid evolution. The contribution of different fibropellin family members to this structure has, however, changed over the course of sea urchin phylogeny, and between two congeneric species that exhibit different developmental modes. Mapping the evolutionary history of the EGF genes on a cladogram of relationships among sea urchins reveals that EGF I is present in all echinoids examined, while EGF III appears to have arisen by duplication and divergence from EGF I during the radiation of a suborder of the camarodont sea urchins some 35-45 million years ago. Alterations in the temporal expression patterns of these genes as well as the loss of one of the two EGF I transcripts and encoded protein are coincident with the evolution of a direct-developing larval form in Heliocidaris erythrogramma. H. erythrogramma and its congener Heliocidaris tuberculata, which develops via a typical echinopluteus larva, shared a common ancestor about 10 million years ago. The differences in fibropellin representation within the apical lamina of the various taxa indicate that a homologous embryonic structure can undergo substantial changes in composition during its evolutionary history.