The painted sea urchin, Lytechinus pictus, as a genetically-enabled developmental model.

Abstract

Although sea urchins are one of the oldest and most widely used marine model systems, few species have been routinely kept in culture through multiple generations. The workhorse of the field is the purple urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus. However, one disadvantage of S. purpuratus is its long generation time, making it impractical as a model for generating and maintaining transgenic lines. In an effort to develop a sea urchin that is suitable for transgenerational experiments and the generation of transgenic lines, we have focused on development of updated culturing methods and genomic resources for the painted sea urchin, Lytechinus pictus. Compared to S. purpuratus, L. pictus have relatively large eggs, develop into optically clear embryos, and the smaller adults can become gravid in under a year. Fifty years ago, Hinegardner developed culturing methods for raising L. pictus through metamorphosis. Here, we provide an updated protocol for establishing and maintaining L. pictus in the laboratory, and describe a new genome resource for this urchin. In our hands, L. pictus reach the 4-armed pluteus stage at 4 days; become competent to metamorphosis at 24 days; and are gravid by 6 months. Plutei and juveniles are fed on a diet of algae and diatoms, and adults are fed on kelp. We also make available a L. pictus transcriptome generated from developmental stages (eggs to 2-day-old plutei) to support the annotation of our genome sequencing project, and to enhance the utility of this species for molecular studies and transgenesis.