Differential gene expression during thermal stress and bleaching in the Caribbean coral Montastraea faveolata.

Autor: DESALVO, M. K.1, VOOLSTRA, C. R.1, SUNAGAWA, S.1, SCHWARZ, J. A.2, STILLMAN, J. H.3, COFFROTH, M. A.4, SZMANT, A. M.5, MEDINA, M.1 mmedina@ucmerced.edu
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Zdroj: Molecular Ecology. Sep2008, Vol. 17 Issue 17, p3952-3971. 20p. 1 Diagram, 2 Charts, 1 Graph.
Abstrakt: The declining health of coral reefs worldwide is likely to intensify in response to continued anthropogenic disturbance from coastal development, pollution, and climate change. In response to these stresses, reef-building corals may exhibit bleaching, which marks the breakdown in symbiosis between coral and zooxanthellae. Mass coral bleaching due to elevated water temperature can devastate coral reefs on a large geographical scale. In order to understand the molecular and cellular basis of bleaching in corals, we have measured gene expression changes associated with thermal stress and bleaching using a complementary DNA microarray containing 1310 genes of the Caribbean coral Montastraea faveolata. In a first experiment, we identified differentially expressed genes by comparing experimentally bleached M. faveolata fragments to control non-heat-stressed fragments. In a second experiment, we identified differentially expressed genes during a time course experiment with four time points across 9 days. Results suggest that thermal stress and bleaching in M. faveolata affect the following processes: oxidative stress, Ca2+ homeostasis, cytoskeletal organization, cell death, calcification, metabolism, protein synthesis, heat shock protein activity, and transposon activity. These results represent the first medium-scale transcriptomic study focused on revealing the cellular foundation of thermal stress-induced coral bleaching. We postulate that oxidative stress in thermal-stressed corals causes a disruption of Ca2+ homeostasis, which in turn leads to cytoskeletal and cell adhesion changes, decreased calcification, and the initiation of cell death via apoptosis and necrosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Databáze: GreenFILE
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