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Research Interests
Comparative developmental biology of marine annelids
I am interested in the origins of body plan novelty during evolution.
My lab approaches this problem by studying the cellular and molecular
changes during development that lead to changes in the adult body
plan. We mainly focus on polychaete annelids and study multiple
species with distinct life history characteristics and body plan
morphologies to utilize the strengths of a comparative approach.
One focus of the lab has been to develop Capitella
teleta, a polychaete annelid, as a model for investigations
of body plan evolution and development. Capitella has a number
of advantages for developmental studies including the ability to
culture it in the laboratory and obtain embryos and larvae year
round. The Capitella genome has been sequenced by the Joint
Genome Institute (Department of Energy,http://genome.jgipsf.org/Capca1/Capca1.home.html)
providing an important resource for our studies. In addition, because
polychaetes continue to add segments into adulthood and have robust
regenerative capacities, they offer a unique system in which to
study the dynamic maintenance of axial position in the adult body.
Ongoing projects of the lab include studies of the evolution of
the segmented body plan, annelid nervous system development and
evolution, development of the through gut, evolution of mesoderm,
germ line development, molecular mechanisms of early fate specification,
and generation of a fate map for the Capitella body plan.
Publications:
Meyer, N. P. and Seaver, E. C. (2010) Cell
lineage and fate map of the primary somatoblast of the polychaete
annelid Capitella teleta. Integrative and Comparative Biology (in
press).
Boyle, M. J. and Seaver, E. C. (2010). Expression
of FoxA and GATA transcription factors correlates with regionalized
gut development in two lophotrochozoan marine worms: Chaetopterus
(Annelida) and Themiste lageniformis (Sipuncula). EvoDevo 1: 2.
Cho, S.-J., Valles, Y., Giani, V. C., Seaver, E.
C. and Weisblat, D. A. (2010). Evolutionary dynamics of the Wnt
gene family: a lophotrochozoan perspective. Molecular Biology and
Evolution doi:10.1093/molbev/msq052.
Meyer, N. P. and Seaver, E. C. (2009). Neurogenesis
in an annelid: characterization of neural progenitors in the polychaete
Capitella sp. I. Developmental Biology 335(1): 237-52.
Fröbius AC, Matus DQ, Seaver EC (2008). Genomic
Organization and Expression Demonstrate Spatial and Temporal Hox
Gene Colinearity in the Lophotrochozoan Capitella sp. I. PLoS ONE
3(12): e4004. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0004004.
Thamm, K. and Seaver, E. C. (2008). Notch signaling
during larval and juvenile development in the polychaete annelid
Capitella sp. I. Developmental Biology, 320 (1): 304-318.
Boyle, M. J. and Seaver, E. C. (2008). Developmental
expression of foxA and gata genes during gut formation in the polychaete
annelid, Capitella sp. I. Evolution and Development 10(1):89-105.
Dill, K. K., Thamm, K. and Seaver, E. C. (2007).
Characterization of twist and snail gene expression during mesoderm
and nervous system development in the polychaete annelid Capitella
sp. I. Development, Genes and Evolution 217(6):435-47.
Fröbius, A. C. and Seaver, E. C. (2006). ParaHox
gene expression in the polychaete annelid Capitella sp. I. Development,
Genes and Evolution 216(2): 81-88.
Seaver, E. C. and Kaneshige, L. M. (2006). Expression
of 'segmentation' genes during larval and juvenile development in
the polychaetes Capitella sp. I and H. elegans. Developmental Biology
289: 179-194.
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