Apostichopus japonicus (Selenka, 1867) is a species of sea cucumber in the Phylum Echinodermata, Class Holothuroidea, Order Aspidochirotida and family Stichopodidae. It is mainly distributed in shallow temperate and temperate-cold waters along the coasts of northeastern Asia. The sea cucumber has a cylindrical leathery body with blunt, thorny protuberances. There are also many tiny calcareous elements called ossicles buried under the skin. A. japonicus is found intermingled on muddy and sandy bottoms at shallower depths. They are found on solid substrates among growth of red alga and in oyster beds

A. japonicus exhibits many fascinating biological characters such as aestivation, evisceration, regeneration, and autolysis. When the temperature rises to a certain range in summer, sea cucumber migrate to deeper, quieter undersea environment going into aestivation. In this state of dormancy, feeding stops, the gut degenerates, and weight is lost. When it is exposed to stressful circumstances (Such as are under attack or induced by intracoelomic injection of KCl), sea cucumber will eviscerate a more or less significant portion of their internal organs, such as most of the digestive tube with associated viscera. In evisceration, most of the digestive tube with associated viscera is rapidly expelled through the cloaca. Then the sea cucumber is capable of regenerating the intestine, respiratory tree, gonads, and body wall in 3 weeks after evisceration. Therefore, sea cucumber serves as a superior model for the study of tissue and organ regeneration and development.

For hundreds of years, sea cucumber has been considered among the most nutritious foods in China. The production reached 194,000 tons in 2013 (Yang et al., 2015), its industry worth over 5 billion USD.