Layer Up

What’s the difference between us and sea anemones? You’d probably say that we’re more complex, more layered beings. And you’d be right. We, and most animals, grow from three distinct layers – inner, outer and middle – while anemones arise from just two (inner and outer). But this ancient rudimentary layer system can provide important information about our more complex setup, particularly when you consider that cells involved in developing our middle layer are also key players in cancer development. A new study investigated the development of these layers in anemones and found that the behaviour of proteins involved in cell-to-cell adhesion – Par proteins and ß-catenin (pink in the developing anemone pictured, and implicated in both cancer and heart disease) – behave differently in different layers. Unpicking how these proteins function at different stages and layers of development will help reveal how to step in when things go awry.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

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• Image from work by Miguel Salinas-Saavedra, Amber Q Rock and Mark Q Martindale
• The Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience, University of Florida, FL, USA
• Image originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0)
• Published in eLife, July 2018