Dr. Stephan Schneider's Lab｜Institute of Cellular and Organismic Biology, Academia Sinica

Introduction

Research in the Schneider laboratory aspires to define ancestral core molecular features of developmental and cell biological mechanisms in metazoans. Our unique research focus exploits a powerful emerging model system, the marine annelid, Platynereis dumerilii. Combining experimental embryology, molecular biology and bioinformatics, we target early embryonic development in Platynereis and utilize comparative genome-wide ‘systems’ approaches. Cells in a developing embryo integrate different molecular cues to activate or inhibit transcription in a cascade of events known as gene regulatory networks (GRNs). The long term goal of the Schneider laboratory is to unravel embryonic GRNs in order to reconstruct the core conserved ‘molecular tool kit’ in animal evolution and to delineate mechanisms by which GRNs generate distinct cell fates and cell types. Unraveling the GRNs in Platynereis contributes to a broader scientific understanding of how gene networks drive cell specification, differentiation and morphological diversity, all fundamental questions in developmental biology and animal evolution, a major goal in evolutionary developmental biology.

     Earlier studies on the role of wnt/beta-catenin signaling in animal evolution resulted in the discovery of the nuclear localization of beta-catenin in the organizer of fish and frog embryos (Schneider et al., 1996), and the discovery of a global beta-catenin mediated binary specification module in early Platynereis embryos (Schneider & Bowerman, 2007 & 2013). To gain molecular insight into this intriguing specification module, the Schneider laboratory developed comprehensive resources including the transcriptional blueprint of the early Platynereis embryo (Chou et al., 2016), and the innovative research tool Pdumbase (Chou et al., 2018), which enables unrestricted exploration and dissection of every early biological process. To date, these have allowed us to define the molecular inputs and outputs of the beta-catenin ‘specification’ module (Pruitt et al., 2014, Bastin et al., 2015, Pruitt et al., in preparation), the asymmetric cell division pathways (Nakama et al., 2017), and gene regulatory networks (GRNs) in cell lineages (Chou et al., 2016 & 2018). Current exciting research avenues include the molecular dissection of ‘organizer activity’ in Platynereis (Haillot & Schneider, in preparation), and the comprehensive molecular definition of a differentiated multi-ciliated cell type (Acevedo-Luna & Schneider, in preparation), including GRNs and differentiation gene batteries by beta-catenin-induced cell fate transformation.

Online Resource

• Chou, H.-C., Acevedo-Luna, N., Kuhlman, J.A., and Schneider, S.Q.
• PdumBase: A transcriptome database and research tool for Platynereis dumerilii and other metazoans
• Please use this temporary link to access PdumBase: https://pdumbase2020.icob.sinica.edu.tw/platynereis/