Genomic Resources for the Study of Sea Urchin Development

As the whole genome sequence assemblies of Strongylocentrotus purpuratus emerge, the computational tools for manipulating this large body of information become ever more crucial. Arrayed libraries and characterized clones are now easily identified and obtained. Software that predicts genome features such as genes, proteins, cis-regulatory regions, and even micro-RNAs resides on the desktop computer of every investigator studying sea urchin cell and developmental biology. Beginning with the establishment of the Sea Urchin Genome Project in 1998 and the later inception of the Center for Computational Regulatory Genomics, there continues a concerted effort to gather, invent, and explain these tools to the community of experimentalists. Here, we describe the status of these resources at the present time.