Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
8387998 Marine Genomics 2018 10 Pages PDF
Abstract
There is a growing body of literature using transcriptomic data to study how tropical cnidarians and their photosynthetic endosymbionts respond to environmental stressors and participate in metabolic exchange. Despite these efforts, our understanding of how essential genes function to facilitate symbiosis establishment and maintenance remains limited. The inclusion of taxonomically and ecologically diverse endosymbionts will enhance our understanding of these interactions. Here we characterize the transcriptomes of two very different symbionts found within the temperate sea anemone Anthopleura elegantissima: the chlorophyte Elliptochloris marina and the dinoflagellate Symbiodinium muscatinei. We use a multi-level approach to assess the diversity of genes found across S. muscatinei and E. marina transcriptomes, and compare their overall protein domains with other dinoflagellates and chlorophytes. Our analysis identified several genes that are potentially involved in mitigating stress response (e.g., heat shock proteins pathways for mediating reactive oxygen species) and metabolic exchange (e.g., ion transporters). Finally, we show that S. muscatinei and other Symbiodinium strains are equipped with a high salt peridinin-chl-protein (HSPCP) gene previously identified only in free-living dinoflagellates. The addition of these transcriptomes to the cnidarian-symbiont molecular toolkit will aid in understanding how these vitally important symbiotic relationships are established and maintained across a variety of environmental conditions.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering Earth and Planetary Sciences Earth and Planetary Sciences (General)
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