The Mediterranean mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis: a novel model for developmental studies in mollusks

A model organism in developmental biology is defined by its experimental amenability and by resources created for the model system by the scientific community. For the most powerful invertebrate models, the combination of both has already yielded a thorough understanding of developmental processes. However, the number of developmental model systems is still limited, and their phylogenetic distribution heavily biased. Members of one of the largest animal lineages, the Spiralia, for example, have long been neglected. In order to remedy this shortcoming, we have produced a detailed developmental transcriptome for the bivalve mollusk Mytilus galloprovincialis, and have expanded the list of experimental protocols available for this species. Our high-quality transcriptome allowed us to identify transcriptomic signatures of developmental progression and to perform a first comparison with another bivalve mollusk: the Pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas. To allow co-labelling studies, we optimized and combined protocols for immunohistochemistry and hybridization chain reaction to create high-resolution co-expression maps of developmental genes. The resources and protocols described here represent an enormous boost for the establishment of Mytilus galloprovincialis as an alternative model system in developmental biology.