The symposium, "Patterning Along an Axis: Insights from Cnidarian Development," will be held at the 7th International Conference on Coelenterate Evolution, July 6-11, 2003, at the University of Kansas in Lawrence Kansas. Funding for this symposium will provide an opportunity for the sharing of information and ideas regarding axial patterning in cnidarians and its implications for metazoan evolution. Previous studies have revealed evidence for similar mechanisms controlling axial patterning in distantly related organisms, suggesting that the regulation of axial patterning is highly conserved across the Metazoa. Most of this information comes from model organisms in the Bilateria. The cnidarians, a probable sister group to bilaterians, require axial patterning mechanisms to specify the various developing axes represented in a typical life cycle; the anterior/posterior axis of the planula larva, the aboral/oral axis in polyp and medusoid forms, and the developing axes of stolons from which polyps bud in colonial forms. The extent to which these axes and axial patterning mechanisms are shared within bilaterians is largely unknown, but many genes have been characterized in cnidarians whose sequence and expression patterns suggest similarities with Bilateria axial patterning genes. The basal phlyogenetic position of the Cnidaria make this an ideal group for providing important clues for understanding how axial patterning mechanisms evolved. This symposium will bring together cnidarian biologists who study different cnidarian species and different aspects of cnidarians axial patterning, including larvae, polyps, medusae and colony-wide patterning. This provides a unique and timely opportunity to develop a greater understanding of how the developmental axes in the cnidarian body plan are regulated to generate the diverse forms found within the Cnidaria, and to assess the degree in which mechanisms of cnidarian development are shared with other metazoans.
