Ontology for the asexual development and anatomy of the colonial chordate Botryllus schlosseri.

Lucia Manni,Lorenzo Ricci,Stefano Tiozzo,Delphine Dauga,Ayelet Voskoboynik,Fabio Gasparini,Katherine J Ishizuka,Kohji Hotta,Hector Escriva

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0096434

Abstract

Ontologies provide an important resource to integrate information. For developmental biology and comparative anatomy studies, ontologies of a species are used to formalize and annotate data that are related to anatomical structures, their lineage and timing of development. Here, we have constructed the first ontology for anatomy and asexual development (blastogenesis) of a bilaterian, the colonial tunicate Botryllus schlosseri. Tunicates, like Botryllus schlosseri, are non-vertebrates and the only chordate taxon species that reproduce both sexually and asexually. Their tadpole larval stage possesses structures characteristic of all chordates, i.e. a notochord, a dorsal neural tube, and gill slits. Larvae settle and metamorphose into individuals that are either solitary or colonial. The latter reproduce both sexually and asexually and these two reproductive modes lead to essentially the same adult body plan. The Botryllus schlosseri Ontology of Development and Anatomy (BODA) will facilitate the comparison between both types of development. BODA uses the rules defined by the Open Biomedical Ontologies Foundry. It is based on studies that investigate the anatomy, blastogenesis and regeneration of this organism. BODA features allow the users to easily search and identify anatomical structures in the colony, to define the developmental stage, and to follow the morphogenetic events of a tissue and/or organ of interest throughout asexual development. We invite the scientific community to use this resource as a reference for the anatomy and developmental ontology of B. schlosseri and encourage recommendations for updates and improvements.

Highlights

Ascidiacea is a class of marine organisms belonging to the chordate subphylum Tunicata, which is a sister group of Vertebrata [1,2,3]
Botryllus schlosseri Ontology of Development and Anatomy (BODA) can be downloaded as Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) file from OBO Foundry portal [65], from the Ontology Bioportal
‘‘by a short epidermal peduncle (BSA)’’, if entities are referred to the B. schlosseri anatomy, or

Summary

Introduction

Ascidiacea is a class of marine organisms belonging to the chordate subphylum Tunicata, which is a sister group of Vertebrata [1,2,3]. Ascidians species encompass solitary and colonial forms, and can adopt different reproductive strategies to develop an adult body through different ontogenetic pathways. In B. schlosseri, the larva already bears one bud, which grows on one side of the newly settled oozooid and forms the first adult blastozooid. The latter is able to produce several lateral buds. The colony of B. schlosseri is characterized by synchronized waves of budding cycles accompanied by regression and resorption of the filtering adults. The colony organizes itself in star-shaped systems of 5–15 clonal blastozooids arranged around a common cloacal, excurrent siphon. Each adult blastozooid bears one to several buds on which the new generation of young budlets is developing (reviewed in [5])

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Conclusion