Differential expression of the msp130 gene among skeletal lineage cells in the sea urchin embryo: a three dimensional in situ hybridization analysis.

In order to examine the ontogeny of tissue-specific expression of the msp130 gene during early embryogenesis of the sea urchin, we have developed a whole-mount, non-radioactive in situ hybridization protocol suitable for these embryos. This protocol is adapted from the existing technology of immunohistochemical localization of digoxygenin-labelled hybridization probes in tissue sections. Transcript distribution patterns in the whole embryo are seen in three dimensions, and at much higher resolution and sensitivity than can be achieved using radioactive probes and sectioned material. We have traced the ontogeny of expression of the skeleton-specific gene, msp130, during the development of Strongylocentrotus purpuratus. Transcripts are first detected at the blastula stage, in micromere-lineage cells just prior to ingression. Appearance of msp130 transcripts remains strictly limited to this lineage through the pluteus stage. Estimated from the relative intensity of staining of the PMCs of an embryo, the relative abundance of msp130 transcripts is uniform among the 32 cells of this lineage in secondary mesenchyme blastulae and in gastrulae, indicating that expression is homogeneous among these cells up to the early prism stage. However, the relative intensity of stain, and therefore abundance of transcripts, changes dramatically and in a consistent pattern among the PMCs of an embryo during prism and pluteus stages, suggesting that these cells switch from an autonomous mode of regulation of the msp130 gene, to an inductive mode. In the pluteus larva, the highest levels of expression occur in those cells associated with the rapidly growing tips of the spicular skeleton.