An ascidian RING finger gene is specifically expressed in a single cell of larval ocellus

The ascidian nervous system is extremely simple, although the structure of it is comparable with the complex vertebrate nervous system. This simplicity makes the ascidian nervous system a good model to understand how the neuronal circuit is built up in the chordate nervous system. In order to study the formation of the neuronal circuit at the single cell level, molecular markers to characterize specific single cells are desired. In the present paper, we describe the gene expression pattern of CIGL: an ascidian homologue of Goliath, a Drosophila RING-finger gene. In the early embryonic stage, CiGl is expressed in the lateral part of the neural tube and in several peripheral nerve cells. Later in the larval stage, CiGl specifically marks ocellus: one of the pigment cells in the ascidian brain, which is involved in the photoreceptive system. CiGl will be useful to understand the differentiation mechanism of ocellus, and especially to test the model proposed by. In addition, the finding of this single cells specific gene expression pattern at a certain developmental stage encourages us to look for more genes which mark single cells, especially those that have not been well characterized.