Free-living animals and their larvae utilize light and gravity as cues to navigate in open space. Detection and response to these environmental stimuli are important for the dispersal and settlement of ascidian larvae. Two pigmented structures in the brain of the ascidian larva, the ocellus and the otolith, have been shown to function as the photoreceptive and gravity sensitive organs, respecti...

Rates of body growth were measured for three species of rocky intertidal gastropods: Thais (or Nucella) lumellosa (Gmelin), T. (or N.) canaliculata (Duclos), and T. (or N.) emarginata (Deshayes). Three size classes of each predator species were grown experimentally in cages at two tidal heights on four size classes of each prey species: Semibalanus cariosus (Pallas), Balanus glandula Darwin, an...

Congeners belonging to the genus Ciona have disparate distributions limited by temperature. Ciona intestinalis is more widespread with a cosmopolitan distribution ranging from tropical to sub-arctic zones, while Ciona savignyi is limited to temperate-latitudes of the northern Pacific Ocean. To compare the heat stress response between congeners, we quantified changes in protein expression using ...

Severe transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI) is often due to antibodies in blood components directed against human neutrophil antigen (HNA)-3a. This study aimed to report the genotype frequencies of the HNA-3 system and to estimate the potential risk of HNA-3 incompatibility and alloimmunization in two Thai populations. Eight hundred DNA samples obtained from 500 unrelated healthy blood...

species identification is always important. records of sea urchins and sand dollars species ‎‎(echinodermata, echinoidea) is given from iranian waters. nine species of echinoderms were ‎identified through the study. the species identification was made using morphological ‎characteristics and review of checklist key. nine species were identified here, including ‎echinometra mathaei, prionocidari...

The GGNG peptides are excitatory neuropeptides identified from earthworms, leeches and polychaeta. Two structurally related peptides were purified and characterized from a mollusk, Thais clavigera (prosobranch gastropod). The peptides designated as Thais excitatory peptide-1 (TEP-1) (KCSGKWAIHACWGGN-NH2) and TEP-2 (KCYGKWAMHACWGGN-NH2) are pentadecapeptides having one disulfide bond and C-termi...

Studies in tunicates such as Ciona have revealed new insights into the evolutionary origins of chordate development. Ciona populations are characterized by high levels of natural genetic variation, between 1 and 5%. This variation has provided abundant material for forward genetic studies. In the current study, we make use of deep sequencing and homozygosity mapping to map spontaneous mutations...

This study reports two new species and one new species record of tanaidomorphan tanaidaceans from Taiwan. The leptocheliid Leptochelia taitungensis sp. nov. can be separated from the most similar species, Leptochelia tarda, in the Leptochelia dubia/savignyi group by having long distal spines on the maxilliped endites and the male having two-articled uropod exopods. The tanaidid Zeuxo shitipinge...