MAGEST: ESTs and Gene Expression Pattern Database for Halocynthia roretzi Maternal cDNA

The Ascidian Halocynthia roretzi is a good model organism to investigate gene functions in developmental mechanisms. In the process of early embryogenesis, maternal factors stored in egg cytoplasms are known to play various significant roles [1]. Recent works have revealed that there exist cytoplasmic determinants that direct the formation of epidermis, muscle and endoderm as well as cytoplasmic factors are involved in the axis specification of the embryo and in gastrulation [1]. In addition, the embryonic cell lineage is almost completely revealed by intracellular marking [2]. For these reasons, we became interested in maternal mRNAs as candidates for the cytoplasmic determinants and initiated a cDNA project that collects mRNA tag-sequences and their expression data. From the data derived from our project, we are constructing a database, named MAGESTMaboya the ascidian, Halocynthia roretzi Gene Expression patterns and Expression Sequence Tagsto analyze the data produced in our project. The MAGEST database can be accessed through the WWW (http://www.genome.ad.jp/magest/).