Gene expression of settled and metamorphosed Orbicella faveolata during establishment of symbiosis
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Genetics, Marine Biology, Molecular Biology, Zoology
- Keywords
- gene expression, symbiodinium, coral, microarray, symbiosis, Orbicella faveolata
- Copyright
- © 2017 O'Rourke et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2017. Gene expression of settled and metamorphosed Orbicella faveolata during establishment of symbiosis. PeerJ Preprints 5:e3283v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.3283v1
Abstract
Corals rely on a symbiosis with dinoflagellate algae (Symbiodinium spp.) to thrive in nutrient poor tropical oceans. However, the coral-algal symbiosis can break down during bleaching events, potentially leading to coral death. While genome-wide expression studies have shown the genes associated with the breakdown of this partnership, the full conglomerate of genes responsible for the establishment and maintenance of a healthy symbiosis remains unknown. Results from previous studies suggested little transcriptomic change associated with the establishment of symbiosis. We examined the transcriptomic response of the coral Orbicella faveolata in the presence (symbiotic) and absence (aposymbiotic) of Symbiodinium minutum, one of its associated symbionts. 9 days post-metamorphic aposymbiotic coral polyps of O. faveolata were compared to symbiotic coral polyps and the subsequent differential gene expression between control and treatment was quantified using cDNA microarray technology. Coral polyps exhibited differential expression of genes associated with nutrient metabolism and development, providing insight into control of pathways as a result of symbiosis driving early polyp growth. Furthermore, genes associated with lysosomal fusion were also upregulated, suggesting host regulation of symbiont densities soon after infection.
Author Comment
This is a preprint submission to PeerJ.
Supplemental Information
Table S1
The list of all annotated genes that were found to be significantly differentially expressed by microarray (FDR ≤ 0.05).