This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on Protostomia is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:
Related Sponsors
 |
This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (May 2008) |
| Protostomes Fossil range: Ediacaran - Recent |
||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Caribbean Reef Squid, an example of Protostome
|
||||||||
| Scientific classification | ||||||||
|
||||||||
| Groups | ||||||||
Protostomia (from the Greek: mouth first) are a taxon of animals. Together with the deuterostomes and a few smaller phyla, they make up the Bilateria, mostly comprising animals with bilateral symmetry and three germ layers. The major distinctions between deuterostomes and protostomes are found in embryonic development.
In animals at least as complex as an earthworm, the embryo forms a dent on one side, the blastopore, which deepens to become the archenteron, the first phase in the growth of the gut. In deuterostomes, the original dent becomes the anus while the gut eventually tunnels through to make another opening, which forms the mouth. The protostomes were so named because it used to be thought that in their embryos the dent formed the mouth while the anus was formed later, at the opening made by the other end of the gut. More recent research, however, shows that in protostomes the edges of the dent close up in the middle, leaving openings at the ends which become the mouth and anus.[1]
There are other significant differences between the protostome and deuterostome patterns of development:
- Most protostomes are schizocoelomates, meaning a solid mass of the embryonic mesoderm splits to form a coelom. A few, such as Priapulids, have no coelom, but they may have descended from schizocoelomate ancestors. On the other hand all known deuterostomes are enterocoelous, meaning that the coelom is formed from longitudinal pouches of the archenteron which then become separate cavities.
- Within the Protostomes a number of phyla undergo what is known as spiral cleavage which is determinate, meaning that the fate of the cells is determined as they are formed. This is in contrast to deuterostomes which have radial cleavage that is indeterminate.
Current molecular data suggest that protostome animals can be divided into three major groups:
- Ecdysozoa, e.g. arthropods, nematodes
- Platyzoa, e.g. platyhelminthes, rotifers
- Lophotrochozoa, e.g. molluscs, annelids
as well as a number of minor taxa of basal or ambiguous affinity.
Notes
- ^ Arendt, D., Technau, U., and Wittbrodt, J. (4 January 2001). "Evolution of the bilaterian larval foregut". Nature 409: 81-85. doi:. Retrieved on 2008-07-14.
 |
This invertebrate-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 30 September 2008, at 03:57.
Wikipedia Authorship and Review
Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.
Wikipedia Usage Guidelines
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Protostomia".
The URL for this specific entry is:
All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.