A whole-body atlas of non-graded BMP signaling activity in a sea anemone

BMP signaling is responsible for the second body axis patterning in Bilateria and in the bilaterally symmetric members of the bilaterian sister clade Cnidaria - corals and sea anemones. However, medusozoan cnidarians (jellyfish, hydroids) are radially symmetric, and yet their genomes contain BMP signaling components. This evolutionary conservation suggests that BMP signaling must have other functions not related to axial patterning, which keeps BMP signaling components under selective pressure. To find out what these functions might be, we generated a detailed whole-body atlas of BMP activity in the sea anemone Nematostella. In the adult polyp, we discover an unexpected diversity of domains with BMP signaling activity, which is especially prominent in the head, as well as across the neuro-muscular and reproductive parts of the gastrodermis. In accordance, analysis of two medusozoan species, the true jellyfish Aurelia and the box jellyfish Tripedalia, revealed similarly broad and diverse BMP activity, supporting the versatile nature of the BMP pathway across anthozoan and medusozoan Cnidaria.