Spec3: embryonic expression of a sea urchin gene whose product is involved in ectodermal ciliogenesis

We have characterized the temporal and spatial expression of Spec3 mRNA in embryos of the sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus. This mRNA, 2.0 kb in length, is present at low levels in unfertilized eggs but accumulates rapidly during cleavage, increasing 50-fold by hatching blastula stage. Message levels then decline abruptly, remain constant during mesenchyme blastula and gastrula stages, and increase again during prism and pluteus stages. This accumulation pattern is quite similar to that of the ectodermally expressed beta-tubulin mRNAs described recently by Harlow and Nemer (1987a). In situ hybridization shows that although Spec3 message accumulates in all blastomeres at early blastula stages, it later becomes restricted to ectoderm. By late blastula stage, hybridization is strongest in the animal hemisphere. At gastrula, signals are variable over ectoderm, and by pluteus, grains are concentrated in the ciliary band, though present in other ectodermal cells as well. Deciliation and regeneration of cilia in gastrula-stage embryos results in a four- to fivefold increase in Spec3 mRNA levels, implying that the Spec3 gene product is associated with ciliogenesis. Spec3 mRNA is encoded by a single gene in the haploid genome, and characterization of the gene shows that it contains three exons that encode an open reading frame for a hydrophobic protein of 21.6 kD. The reading frame reveals that the carboxy-terminal part of the protein contains two long hydrophobic stretches, 31 and 37 residues long, separated by short hydrophilic regions of six to eight residues. The presence of these two distinct hydrophobic stretches suggests that the Spec3 protein contains two alpha-helical domains that either span the lipid bilayer or are associated with some other hydrophobic environment.