Scientists have found that sea urchins although being tiny spiky, spineless, invertebrates share a common ancestor with humans and are genetically related to us. They are one of few invertebrates on our branch of the evolutionary tree sharing more genes with humans than fruit flies and worms. When comparing the two genomes there are many amino acid sequences that are a perfect match. In fact even though sea urchins look nothing like us, they share more than 7000 genes with humans and biologists are now using them to learn how to treat and prevent diseases in humans better. It was found that some of the genes of the sea urchin involve such diseases as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, muscular dystrophy and many cancer related genes and are thought to hold the key to curing these and many other human diseases . Infertility is another problem that sea urchins maybe able to solve as they can produce up to around 20 million eggs at a time.
Scientists have recently completed sequencing the sea urchins genome which consists of 23000 genes 7000 as said above are. Interestingly, although they don't have eyes, ears or a nose, but they have the genes humans have for vision, hearing and smelling. Sea urchins are known for their strong immune system and long life spans so scientists are interested in how their immune system works in the hope of finding new antibiotics and antiviral compounds to fight infectious diseases. With a complete map of a sea urchins DNA they can better understand how genes work, so when diseases like cancer strike, maybe someday doctors will know exactly how to treat and even prevent them. The use of these creatures is also very convenient as they are readily available as they reproduce quicker than many other animals and researchers can produce practically unlimited amounts of material.
References
http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2007/0304-sea_urchins_reveal_medical_mysteries.htm
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