Megan A Barela Hudgell

University of New Mexico | UNM · Center for Evolutionary and Theoretical Immunology

The SpTransformer (SpTrf) gene family in the purple sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus, encodes immune response proteins. The genes are clustered, surrounded by short tandem repeats, and some are present in genomic segmental duplications. The genes share regions of sequence and include repeats in the coding exon. This complex structure is co...

Bald sea urchin disease (BSUD) is most likely a bacterial infection that occurs in a wide range of sea urchin species and causes the loss of surface appendages. The disease has a variety of additional symptoms, which may be the result of the many bacteria that are associated with BSUD. Previous studies have investigated causative agents of BSUD, ho...

Macrhybopsis tetranema and Oncorhynchus gilae are fish species endemic to the Southwestern United States. We present the complete mitochondrial genomes for these species. Each genome consisted of 13 protein-coding genes, two ribosomal (rRNA) genes, 22 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes, and the control region (D-loop). Mitogenome lengths were 16,916 base pa...

The SpTransformer (SpTrf) gene family encodes a set of proteins that function in the sea urchin immune system. The gene sequences have a series of internal repeats in a mosaic pattern that is characteristic of this family. This mosaic pattern necessitates the insertion of large gaps, which has made alignments of the deduced protein sequences comput...

The sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus has seven described populations of distinct coelomocytes in the coelomic fluid that are defined by morphology, size, and for some types, by known functions. Of these subtypes, the large phagocytes are thought to be key to the sea urchin cellular innate immune response. The concentration of total coelomo...

Molecular cloning, gene manipulation, gene expression, protein function, and gene regulation all depend on the introduction of nucleic acids into target cells. Multiple methods have been developed to facilitate such delivery including instrument based microinjection and electroporation, biological methods such as transduction, and chemical methods...

The sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus, possesses at least seven distinguishable cell populations in the coelomic fluid, which vary in morphology, size, and function. Of these, the large phagocytes, small phagocytes, and red spherule cells are thought to be key to the echinoid immune response. Because there are currently no effective and rap...

The generation of large immune gene families is often driven by evolutionary pressure exerted on host genomes by their pathogens, which has been described as the immunological arms race. The SpTransformer (SpTrf) gene family from the California purple sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus, is upregulated upon immune challenge and encodes the Sp...

Correction to: Chapter 13 in: E. L. Cooper (ed.), Advances in Comparative Immunology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76768-0_13

The Echinodermata are an ancient phylum of benthic marine invertebrates with a dispersal-stage planktonic larva. These animals have innate immune systems characterized initially by clearance of foreign particles, including microbes, from the body cavity of both larvae and adults, and allograft tissue rejection in adults. Immune responsiveness is me...

Background Genomic regions with repetitive sequences are considered unstable and prone to swift DNA diversification processes. A highly diverse immune gene family of the sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus), called Sp185/333, is composed of clustered genes with similar sequence as well as several types of repeats ranging in size from short ta...

Innate immune systems in both animals and plants that lack somatic recombination and assembly mechanisms rely on a limited, preset number of genes encoding pathogen-recognition proteins that target universal pathogen-associated molecular patterns and/or monitor pathogen effector activity. To keep up with the ever-expanding diversity and virulence o...

The 13th Congress of the International Society of Developmental and Comparative Immunology took place in Murcia Spain from June 28 to July 3, 2015 at the Victor Villegas Auditorium and Convention Center. There were two or three parallel sessions during the Congress that covered a wide range of immunological topics and brought researchers together f...

The majority of parasite species exhibit host specificity. In general, our understanding of this phenomenon is poor. We address this question using the digenean Schistosoma mansoni as our model parasite. The larval development of S. mansoni occurs in snails of the genus Biomphalaria. For example, the Neotropical snail B. glabrata supports S. manson...

The majority of parasite species exhibit host specificity. In general, our knowledge of why a particular parasite can infect some host species but fails to infect others is poor. To address this basic question, I will study the parasite Schistosoma mansoni which infects 200 million people in both Africa and the Neotropics. Its larval development oc...