This Ancient Sea Creature Builds Its Body With a Whisper, not a Scream - The New York Times

Unlike vertebrate embryo cells, which signal to each other over long distances, sea squirt embryo cells talk only to those they’re closest to.

Most researchers in the field of developmental biology “have never really thought about cell signaling in this way,” said Chen Cao, who researches sea squirt development at Princeton University but wasn’t involved in the new study.

“This is a brand-new angle” on how embryo cells find their fates, she said.

Unlike frog or mouse embryo cells which may zip to and fro during development, young sea squirt cells stayed mostly in place.

In at least these early stages of development, sea squirt cells didn’t seem to need long-distance chatter.

The findings raise the possibility that “you can be a whole, sophisticated embryo” by way of local signals alone, said Patrick Lemaire, a developmental biologist at the University of Montpellier in France and a co-author of the study.

“This is a beautiful piece of work,” said Cassandra Extavour, a developmental biologist at Harvard University who wasn’t involved in the study.

Cao said she thinks even sea squirt cells might make some long-distance calls later in development.