MBE Advance Access originally published online on April 2, 2003
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Mol. Biol. Evol. 20(5):784-791. 2003
DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msg086
© 2003 by the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. ISSN: 0737-4038
Search for the Evolutionary Origin of a Brain: Planarian Brain Characterized by Microarray

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* Center for Information Biology and DNA Data Bank of Japan, National Institute of Genetics, Mishima, Japan
RIKEN, Center for Developmental Biology, Kobe, Japan
Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan
Department of Cell and Structural Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
The origin of the brain remains a challenging problem in evolutionary studies. To understand when and how the structural brain emerged, we analyzed the central nervous system (CNS) of a lower invertebrate, planarian. We conducted a large-scale screening of the head partspecific genes in the planarian by constructing a cDNA microarray. Competitive hybridization of cDNAs between a head portion and the other body portion of planarians revealed 205 genes with head partspecific spikes, including essential genes in the vertebrate nervous system. The expression patterns of the top 30 genes showing the strongest spikes implied that the planarian brain has undergone functional regionalization. We demonstrate the complex cytoarchitecture of the planarian brain, despite its simple superficiality of the morphology.
Key Words: central nervous system origin of brain planarian microarray
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