๐พ
Species
Species Overview
Ciona robusta was previously classified as a population of Ciona intestinalis (type B) but was elevated to full species status based on molecular phylogenetic evidence. It is native to the western Pacific, particularly around Japan, but has become a widespread invasive species in harbors and coastal waters of the Mediterranean, Atlantic, and Pacific. Adults are sessile, translucent, and vase-shaped, typically 10โ15 cm tall, with two siphons. They are efficient filter feeders, processing large volumes of seawater daily. C. robusta is a sequential hermaphrodite with external fertilization and rapid embryonic development (~18 hours from fertilization to tadpole larva at 18ยฐC). The tadpole larva possesses a notochord, dorsal nerve cord, and otolith/ocellus sensory organs. Most laboratory strains previously labeled C. intestinalis in Japan and many other countries are now recognized as C. robusta. Its genome is compact (~115 Mb) with relatively little repetitive DNA, making it an efficient model for functional genomics, CRISPR-based gene editing, and cis-regulatory analysis. The species has become a premier model for studying chordate development, neural crest-like cell evolution, heart development, and cellulose biosynthesisโa rare trait among animals linked to a horizontally transferred gene.
Integrated UMAP Atlas & Gene Explorer
Provisional atlas release
This view is a provisional release built from a public dataset (PMID 30392840) that has not yet completed the LACA annotation pipeline: cell groups are unsupervised Leiden clusters without curated cell-type names, and the embedding was recomputed by LACA (normalize/HVG/PCA/UMAP) without batch correction. Gene search is disabled pending the curated release.
9,632 cells ยท provisional clusters Loading UMAP for Robust sea squirtโฆ
Cell Distribution โ WebGL
Cells: 0Types: 0Zoom: 1.0x
โ UMAP_1
โ UMAP_2
Loading...
Cell Types
Loading cell types...
โ
Tissues
โ
Systems
โ
Samples
0
Total Cells
0
Cell Types
View by System
Biological System Atlas2Systems
View by Tissue
Tissue-Level Cell Distribution4Tissues
View by Cell Type
Cellular Composition Explorer91Cell Types
Adrenergic neurons
โ
Adventitial cells
โ
Amacrine cells
โ
Bipolar cells
โ
Cholangiocytes
โ
Cone cells
โ
Corticotropes
โ
Cycling basal cells
โ
Cycling Cells
โ
Cycling ciliated cells
โ
Cycling epithelial cells
โ
Cycling glandular cells
โ
Cycling intermediate cells
โ
Cycling luminal epithelial cells
โ
Cycling stereociliated cells
โ
Descending limb of loop of Henle cells
โ
Effector chondrocytes
โ
Endoneurial cells
โ
Enteric neuronal progenitor cells
โ
Enteric neurons
โ
Eosinophils
โ
Ependymal cells
โ
Epineurial cells
โ
Epithelial cells
โ
Fasciculata cells
โ
Fibrocartilage chondrocytes
โ
Follicular cells
โ
Folliculostellate cells
โ
Ganglion cells
โ
Gastric epithelial cells
โ
Glandular cells
โ
Glial cells
โ
Glomerulosa cells
โ
Gonadotropes
โ
Granule cells
โ
Granulocytes
โ
Granulosa cells
โ
Homeostatic chondrocytes
โ
Horizontal cells
โ
Hypertrophic chondrocytes
โ
Inflammatory chondrocytes
โ
Lactotropes
โ
Luminal epithelial cells
โ
Melanotropes
โ
Mesenchymal cells
โ
Motor neurons
โ
Muller cells
โ
Myotendinous junctions
โ
Natural killer cells
โ
Natural killer T cells
โ
Neural crest cells
โ
Neural progenitor cells
โ
Neuromuscular junctions
โ
Neurons
โ
Oocytes
โ
Osteoblasts
โ
Osteoclasts
โ
Other stromal cells
โ
Oviduct epithelial cells
โ
Perineurial cells
โ
Pinealocytes
โ
Pre-hypertrophic chondrocytes
โ
Pre-inflammatory chondrocytes
โ
Precursor fibrocartilage chondrocytes
โ
Principal like cells
โ
Progenitor-like epithelial cells
โ
Proliferative chondrocytes
โ
Prostate progenitor cells
โ
Pseudostratified columnar cells
โ
Radial glial cells
โ
Regulatory chondrocytes
โ
Reparative chondrocytes
โ
Retinal pigmentary epithelial cells
โ
Rod cells
โ
Satellite cells
โ
Seminal vesicle epithelial cells
โ
Serous cells
โ
Skeletal myonuclei
โ
Somatotropes
โ
Squamous cells
โ
Stereociliated cells
โ
Supporting cells of vestibular epithelium
โ
Surface epithelial cells
โ
T_NKT cells
โ
Taste cells
โ
Tendon cells
โ
Theca cells
โ
Thyrotropes
โ
Type I myonuclei
โ
Type II myonuclei
โ
Vestibular dark cells
โ
๐ Overview
Related Species in Invertebrates
Cell Type
Expression
Coords