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Using Amphioxus as a Basal Chordate Model to Study BMP Signaling Pathway

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Bone Morphogenetic Proteins

Part of the book series: Methods in Molecular Biology ((MIMB,volume 1891))

Abstract

The BMP signaling pathway has been shown to be involved in different aspects of embryonic development across diverse metazoan phyla. Comparative studies on the roles of the BMP signaling pathway provide crucial insights into the evolution of the animal body plans. In this chapter, we present the general workflow on how to investigate the roles of BMP signaling pathway during amphioxus embryonic development. As amphioxus are basal invertebrate chordates, studies on the BMP signaling pathway in amphioxus could elucidate the functional evolution of BMP pathway in the chordate group. Here, we describe methods for animal husbandry, spawning induction, and manipulation of the BMP signaling pathway during embryonic development through drug inhibitors and recombinant proteins. We also introduce an efficient method of using mesh baskets to handle amphioxus embryos for fluorescence immunostaining and multicolor fluorescence in situ hybridization and to assay the effects of manipulating BMP signaling pathway during amphioxus embryogenesis.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grants from the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST 104-2923-B-001-002-MY3; 105-2628-B-001-003-MY3) and Academia Sinica, Taiwan (AS 98-CDA-L06), and grant GC15-21285J from Grantová Agentura České Republiky. We would like to thank all the past and present members of the Research Group of Development and Evolution at ICOB Academia Sinica, especially Yi-Chih Chen, Tsai-Ming Lu, Yi-Jyun Luo, and Tzu-Kai Huang, for their help on developing these protocols. We would also like to thank Yann le Petillon for the advice regarding the properties of Dorsomorphin.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Cellular and Organismic Biology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan

    Luok Wen Yong & Jr-Kai Yu

  2. Institute of Molecular Genetics of the ASCR, Prague, Czech Republic

    Iryna Kozmikova

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  1. Luok Wen Yong
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  2. Iryna Kozmikova
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  3. Jr-Kai Yu
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Correspondence to Jr-Kai Yu .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. New Jersey Medical School, Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences, Newark, NJ, USA

    Melissa B. Rogers

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Yong, L.W., Kozmikova, I., Yu, JK. (2019). Using Amphioxus as a Basal Chordate Model to Study BMP Signaling Pathway. In: Rogers, M. (eds) Bone Morphogenetic Proteins. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1891. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-8904-1_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-8904-1_8

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