Abstract
Echinoderms are a phylum of marine deterostomes with a range of interesting biological features. One remarkable ability is their impressive capacity to regenerate most of their adult tissues, including the central nervous system (CNS). The research community has accumulated data that demonstrates that, in spite of the pentaradial adult body plan, echinoderms share deep similarities with their bilateral sister taxa such as hemichordates and chordates. Some of the new data reveal the complexity of the nervous system in echinoderms. In terms of the cellular architecture, one of the traits that is shared between the CNS of echinoderms and chordates is the presence of radial glia. In chordates, these cells act as the main progenitor population in CNS development. In mammals, radial glia are spent in embryogenesis and are no longer present in adults, being replaced with other neural cell types. In non-mammalian chordates, they are still detected in the mature CNS along with other types of glia. In echinoderms, radial glia also persist into the adulthood, but unlike in chordates, it is the only known glial cell type that is present in the fully developed CNS. The echinoderm radial glia is a multifunctional cell type. Radial glia forms the supporting scaffold of the neuroepithelium, exhibits secretory activity, clears up dying or damaged cells by phagocytosis, and, most importantly, acts as a major progenitor cell population. The latter function is critical for the outstanding developmental plasticity of the adult echinoderm CNS, including physiological cell turnover, indeterminate growth, and a remarkable capacity to regenerate major parts following autotomy or traumatic injury. In this review we summarize the current knowledge on the organization and function of the echinoderm radial glia, with a focus on the role of this cell type in adult neurogenesis.
1. Introduction
Echinoderms are a phylum of exclusively marine invertebrates, whose biology is fascinating at many levels. Phylogenetically, echinoderms are placed, together with hemichordates, as a sister taxon (Ambulacraria) to chordates within the monophyletic group Deuterostomia (Figure 1). This deep common ancestry with our own phylum makes echinoderms particularly interesting, informative, and relevant to fundamental science and translational medicine. The importance of echinoderm research for fundamental science is due to the insights it provides into the evolution of organ systems, body plans, and developmental trajectories (Heinzeller and Welsch, ; Swalla, 2006; Lowe et al., ; Adameyko, ; Nanglu et al., 2023). The value of echinoderm studies in translational medicine is due to the unusually high regenerative capacities of adult echinoderm tissues, including the central nervous system (CNS).
Figure 1
There are about 7,000 extant echinoderm species (Satoh, 2016) that are classified into five classes: Crinoidea (sea lilies and feather stars), Asteroidea (starfish), Ophiuroidea (brittle stars), Echinoidea (sea urchins), and Holothuroidea (sea cucumbers; Figure 1). Unlike other deuterostomes, modern echinoderms have secondary pentaradial symmetry, with five body axes converging at the mouth (Figure 2). In stellate forms, which include crinoids, asteroids, and ophiuroids, these five axes form body extensions called arms. In globose forms—echinoids and holothuroids—these axes run between the oral and aboral poles of the body and subdivide it into five sectors.
Figure 2
The gross anatomical organization of the echinoderm CNS follows the pentaradial design of the body plan. Each axis is supplied with a radial nerve cord (RNC), which is accompanied by other radial organs, including the hemal canal, the water-vascular canal, and muscle(s) (Figures 2, 3A–C). In the vicinity of the mouth, the five RNCs are joined together by a circumoral nerve ring (Figure 2). Because of its pentaradial design, the echinoderm CNS had been considered for decades to be too “derived” and “enigmatic” (Cobb, ), with unclear homology relationships to its counterparts in other deuterostome animals and bilaterians in general. As a result, research into the neurobiology of echinoderm has made much slower progress compared to that in other phyla. Fortunately, the situation has changed in the last two decades due to a serious effort to resolve at least some of the homology issues. The problem of homologizing the anatomical components of the echinoderm CNS to those of other deuterostomes is contingent on resolving the homology of the main body axes in the adult pentaradial echinoderm body. Axis comparison between echinoderms and other deuterostomes is one of the most problematic outstanding issues in the modern evolutionary developmental biology (Heinzeller and Welsch, ; Swalla, 2006; Lowe et al., ; Adameyko, ; Nanglu et al., 2023). What makes this conundrum particularly difficult to resolve is the challenge of synthesizing and interpreting the growing body of paleontological, embryological, and molecular data.
Figure 3
Although not yet universally accepted (Adachi et al.,
Another impetus for the recent progress in echinoderm neurobiology is due to the renewed interest in post-traumatic neurogenesis. One of the most interesting developments in the recent years has been the realization that echinoderms possess radial glial cells in the CNS (Mashanov et al., 2006, 2009,
In this review, we summarize the current knowledge on echinoderm radial glia, highlight the gaps that still exist in our understanding, and outline the avenues for future research.
2. Anatomical organization of the echinoderm CNS
As the organization of the echinoderm CNS is not part of the common knowledge among non-specialists, we provide a brief anatomical overview and introduce the necessary terminology here. For more detailed accounts, the reader is referred to the classical and more recently published reviews (Hyman,
As introduced above, the CNS includes five radial nerve cords that are joined together by a circumoral nerve ring (Figures 2A, B). At the microanatomical level, the CNS is composed of two closely apposed, but distinct layers of nervous tissue called the ectoneural and hyponeural systems (Figures 2A', B', 3A, A', B). The anatomical location of the ectoneural layer varies among the five echinoderm classes. In crinoids and asteroids, it is located on the oral surface of the body (Figures 2A', 3A, A'). These are the animals with open ambulacra. In contrast, the three remaining classes (i.e., ophiuroids, echinoids, and holothuroids) have closed ambulacra, in which the ectoneural cords are internalized into the dermis of the body wall (Figures 2B', 3B, C). The hyponeural cords in all echinoderms always run parallel to the inner surface of the ectoneural system (Figures 2A', B', 3A, A', B).
The primary structural and functional component of the ectoneural and hyponeural systems is a well-developed neuroepithelium. In echinoderms with open ambulacra, the ectoneural neuroepithelium is directly integrated into the epidermis (Figure 2A') being separated from the ambient environment with only a thin apical cuticle (Figure 3A'). In closed ambulacra, the internalized ectoneural neuroepithelium is overlain by a narrow cavity called the epineural canal. The outer wall of this canal is formed by a thin roof epithelium (Figures 2B', 3B). The internalized ectoneural cords are thus essentially tubular structures. The hyponeural cords are always tubular, with their own cavity, the hyponeural canal, between the hyponeural neuroepithelium and the flattened roof epithelium (Figures 2B', 3B).
The ectoneural and hyponeural cords are positioned with the basal surfaces of their respective neuroepithelia facing each other. The two neuroepithelia are connected at intervals by short neural bridges that cross a thin connective tissue partition between the ectoneural and hyponeural systems (Figure 3B).
3. Echinoderm radial glia organization and function
For a time, the very existence of glia in echinoderms was questioned (Cobb,
The neuroepithelia of the echinoderm CNS contain only one morphologically distinguishable glial cell type (Märkel and Röser,
Figure 4

Organization of radial glia in the echinoderm neuroepithelium. bl, basal lamina; ci, cilium; hd, hemidesmosome; if , bundle of intermediate filaments; ij, intercellular junction; lp, lateral protrusion; n, nucleus.
The epineural and hyponeural roof epithelia are both composed of modified flattened glial cells that also contain short bundles of intermediate filaments in their cytoplasm, but lack basal processes (Märkel and Röser,
We determined the ratio of radial glial cells to neurons in the CNS of the sea cucumber Holothuria glaberrima (Mashanov et al.,
The body of accumulated data, including ultrastructural observations, immunocytochemistry, cell proliferation, and functional assays, suggest that echinoderm radial glia, the only major glial cell type in the neuroepithelium, is a multifunctional cell type. First, as the only true epithelial cell type in the CNS, radial glia form a supporting scaffold of the neuroepithelium. The features that give radial glia mechanical strength and stability (Bodega et al.,
In chordates, SCO-spondin is produced by secretory radial glia in the rostral floor plate and in the subcomissural organ (Guiñazú et al.,
3.1. Molecular and functional heterogeneity of echinoderm radial glial cells
Based on morphology alone, the radial glial cells in the echinoderm neuroepithelia constitute a single cell type. However, deeper characterization revealed that a range of molecular markers are expressed only in some radial glial cells, but not in others. These results indicate that the echinoderm radial glia is a heterogeneous cell population (Mashanov et al.,
3.1.1. Calbindin
Some of the radial glial cells of the ectoneural and hyponeural neuroepithelia of the adult sea cucumber CNS were found to display immunoreactivity to antibodies directed against the protein calbindin-d28k (Mashanov et al.,
3.1.2. Brn1/2/4
Brn1/2/4 is an echinoderm ortholog of the vertebrate proteins Brn1, Brn2, and Brn3, which belong to a subgroup (class III) within the POU family of transcription factors (Wolf et al., 2009). In vertebrates, these transcription factors are potent inducers of the neuronal cell fate (Wolf et al., 2009; Vierbuchen et al., 2010). For example, Brn2 was one of the three genes (along with Ascl1 and Myt1l), whose forced expression was used for direct in vitro conversion of mouse fibroblasts into functional neurons (Vierbuchen et al., 2010). The important role in the specification of the neuronal fate is evolutionary conserved, as Brn1/2/4 has been shown to be required for differentiation of all post-mitotic neurons in the sea urchin larval nervous system (Garner et al.,
3.1.3. Myc
Myc proteins are multifunctional transcription factors that control the transcriptional output of thousands of target genes required for a diverse range of biological processes (Patange et al., 2022). One of the prominent roles of Myc genes is their involvement in the regulation of both the embyonic and adult neurogenesis (Cai et al.,
In the uninjured CNS of the sea cucumber H. glaberrima, the transcription factor Myc is abundantly expressed in the apicolateral neurogenic regions (see below) of the ectoneural epithelium of the radial nerve cord. This is the region where most of the radial glial cell bodies are located. At the cellular level, however, not all radial glial cells express Myc. Instead, Myc-positive glial cells are interspersed among Myc-negative cells (Mashanov et al.,
4. Adult neurogenesis
Two types of adult neurogenesis can be distinguished in echinoderms: (a) neurogenesis in the uninjured adult nervous tissue under “normal” conditions and (b) post-traumatic neurogenesis triggered by an injury or autotomy. Neurogenesis of the first type is a continuous long-term (lifelong) process that results in the replacement of the dead/worn out cells and/or adult growth (e.g., at the tip of the brittle star arm). Neurogenesis of the second type is a relatively short-term event triggered by a CNS injury and aimed at the restoration of the anatomical, histological and functional integrity of the damaged CNS region. Both types of neurogenesis rely on the same source, the radial glial cells, that undergo cell division and give rise to new neuronal and glial cells.
4.1. Neurogenesis in the uninjured CNS
Echinoderms are well-known for their ability to rapidly and fully regrow most of their adult tissues and organs, including the central nervous system (Carnevali,
So far, adult neurogenesis in the uninjured echinoderm CNS has been studied in two species from two different echinoderm subtaxa—the sea cucumber H. glaberrima (Mashanov et al.,
In the brittle star O. brevispinum, an active neurogenesis zone was localized in the radial nerve cord at the tip of adult non-regenerating arm (Mashanov et al.,
Taken together, the emerging body of data suggests that there are interesting parallels between the neurogenesis in the uninjured echinoderm CNS and adult neurogenesis in vertebrates. One common feature is that the adult neurogenesis is driven by radial glial cells (Alvarez-Buylla and Lim,
4.2. Post-traumatic neurogenesis
The capacity of adult echinoderms to fully regenerate their CNS has long been known (Hyman,
Although anatomically obvious, the post-traumatic neural regeneration had remained relatively unstudied in echinoderms at the cellular and molecular levels until a reproducible and experimentally tractable injury model was established in sea cucumbers (Mashanov et al.,
Immediately after the radial nerve cord transection, the adjacent body wall muscles pull the margins of the wound apart and thus create a wound gap measuring several millimeters wide. The early post-injury phase is marked with a spike of apoptotic cell death in both glial and neuronal populations and an extensive dedifferentiation of radial glial cells in the vicinity of the injury. The dedifferentiating glial cells stop producing and secreting SCO-spondin and lose their long basal processes, which undergo fragmentation and are then phagocytosed by adjacent cells. However, the cell bodies of the dedifferentiating cells maintain their epithelial organization, including the intercellular junctions and apicobasal polarity. Dedifferentiation starts at the site of the injury, then spreads deeper into the regions of the RNC that were not directly impacted by the wound (300–500 μm from the plane of the injury). Both early events, the glial activation and the surge in apoptosis, are controlled by the transcription factor Myc (Mashanov et al.,
Extensive cell death at the injury site during the early phase of regeneration also coincides with a sharp (~50-fold) increase of the expression of the long terminal repeat (LTR) retrotransposon Gypsy1 (Mashanov et al.,
Even though the increase in cell death and glial dedifferentiation both take place simultaneously during the early post-injury phase and both are regulated by Myc, these two cell events are not necessarily coupled. In a recent study (Quesada-Díaz et al., 2021), explants of the radial nerve cord of the sea cucumber H. glaberrima were surgically excised and kept in vitro. The radial glial cells in the explants started exhibiting signs of dedifferentiation as early as on day three in culture, while the relative abundance of apoptotic cells remained at the basal level. These results indicate that dedifferentiation of surviving glial cells does not necessarily require apoptosis of adjacent cells in the neuroepithelium.
Once dedifferentiated, glial cells become highly proliferative and will give rise to new glial cells and neurons. After radial nerve cord transection in sea cucumbers (Mashanov et al.,
It is interesting to note the similarities between the neurogenesis in the uninjured CNS and post-traumatic neural regeneration in echinoderms. The most interesting parallel is that both phenomena rely on radial glial cells as the progenitor population. This observation is in line with the growing body of evidence that suggest that the capacity for post-traumatic adult regeneration strongly correlates with indeterminate growth and that the mechanisms underlying the normal growth can be co-opted in regeneration (Vogt, 2012; Hariharan et al.,
5. Conclusions
The echinoderm radial glia shares a number of key characteristics with the radial glia of chordates, including:
- the orthogonal orientation relative to the surface of the neuroepithelium;
- the slender elongated shape spanning the height of the neuroepithelium;
- the epithelial nature with clear apicobasal cell polarity and apical cilia;
- the well-developed cytoskeleton composed of bundles of intermediate filaments in the cytoplasm;
- the ability to produce and secrete SCO-spondin;
- the requirement of Myc expression for the activation of the neural progenitor function.
The neurogenic progenitor population in echinoderm neurogenesis is a subset of radial glial cells. The neurogenic activity in these cells is known to be defined by the differential activity of two transcription factors: the expression of Myc and the absence of Brn1/2/4. Myc is required for the glia activation in response to injury. Brn1/2/4 needs to be absent in order for the glia to be able to function as the progenitor cell population.
The morphological, molecular, and functional similarities between the echinoderm radial glia and their counterparts in chordates reveals that radial glia is a phylogenetically ancient cell type that would have emerged at least in the last common ancestor of ambulacrarians and chordates. The stereotypical role of the radial glia in neurogenesis raises the possibility that the fundamental mechanisms of neurogenesis are conserved in deuterosomes. Further research into the neurogenesis of highly regenerative echinoderms will help us understand how the latent phylogenetically conserved cellular and molecular mechanisms can be harnessed to develop new efficient treatment options for human CNS injuries.
Statements
Author contributions
VM: Conceptualization, Writing—original draft. SA: Writing—review and editing. DJM: Writing—review and editing. RR: Writing—review and editing. DJ: Writing—review and editing.
Funding
The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute for General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under award number 1R15GM128066-01.
Acknowledgments
We acknowledge the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine and the following entities at UNC Charlotte: The Department of Bioinformatics and Genomics, The Center for Computational Intelligence to Predict Health and Environmental Risks, the College of Computing and Informatics, The Office of Research, University Research Computing, and the Graduate School. We also thank the Belk family for support.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The author(s) declared that they were an editorial board member of Frontiers, at the time of submission. This had no impact on the peer review process and the final decision.
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Summary
Keywords
echinoderm, radial glia, neurogenesis, regeneration, indeterminate growth, Myc
Citation
Mashanov V, Ademiluyi S, Jacob Machado D, Reid R and Janies D (2023) Echinoderm radial glia in adult cell renewal, indeterminate growth, and regeneration. Front. Neural Circuits 17:1258370. doi: 10.3389/fncir.2023.1258370
Received
13 July 2023
Accepted
12 September 2023
Published
29 September 2023
Volume
17 - 2023
Edited by
Tatiana Olivares, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Ensenada, Mexico
Reviewed by
Anna Czarkwiani, Technical University Dresden, Germany; Ilias Kazanis, University of Patras, Greece
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© 2023 Mashanov, Ademiluyi, Jacob Machado, Reid and Janies.
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*Correspondence: Vladimir Mashanov vmashano@wakehealth.edu
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