With little more than 330 cells, two thirds within the sensory vesicle, the CNS of the tadpole larva of the ascidian Ciona intestinalis provides us with a chordate nervous system in miniature. Neurulation, neurogenesis and its genetic bases, as well as the gene expression territories of this tiny constituency of cells all follow a chordate plan, giving rise in some cases to frank structural homologies with the vertebrate brain. Recent advances are fueled by the release of the genome and EST expression databases and by the development of methods to transfect embryos by electroporation. Immediate prospects to test the function of neural genes are based on the isolation of mutants by classical genetics and insertional mutagenesis, as well as by the disruption of gene function by morpholino antisense oligo-nucleotides. Coupled with high-speed video analysis of larval swimming, optophysiological methods offer the prospect to analyze at single-cell level the function of a CNS built on a vertebrate plan.

中文翻译：

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海ci幼虫的神经生物学：古代cho虫的最新进展。

仅有约330个细胞，位于感觉小泡内的三分之二，海鞘Ciona intestinalis的the幼虫的CNS为我们提供了一个微型的绒毛状神经系统。神经，神经发生及其遗传基础，以及这个微小细胞组成的基因表达区域都遵循一个chordate计划，在某些情况下会引起与脊椎动物大脑的结构同源性。基因组和EST表达数据库的发布以及通过电穿孔转染胚胎的方法的发展推动了最新进展。测试神经基因功能的直接前景是基于通过经典遗传学和插入诱变分离突变体，以及通过吗啉代反义寡核苷酸破坏基因功能。