In situ visualization of bacterial populations in coral tissues: pitfalls and solutions

Wada, Naohisa, Pollock, Frederic J., Willis, Bette L., Ainsworth, Tracy, Mano, Nobuhiro, and Bourne, David G. (2016) In situ visualization of bacterial populations in coral tissues: pitfalls and solutions. PeerJ, 4. e2424.

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Abstract

In situ visualization of microbial communities within their natural habitats provides a powerful approach to explore complex interactions between microorganisms and their macroscopic hosts. Specifically, the application of fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) to simultaneously identify and visualize diverse microbial taxa associated with coral hosts, including symbiotic algae (Symbiodinium), Bacteria, Archaea, Fungi and protists, could help untangle the structure and function of these diverse taxa within the coral holobiont. However, the application of FISH approaches to coral samples is constrained by non-specific binding of targeted rRNA probes to cellular structures within the coral animal tissues (including nematocysts, spirocysts, granular gland cells within the gastrodermis and cnidoglandular bands of mesenterial filaments). This issue, combined with high auto-fluorescence of both host tissues and endosymbiotic dinoflagellates (Symbiodinium), make FISH approaches for analyses of coral tissues challenging. Here we outline the major pitfalls associated with applying FISH to coral samples and describe approaches to overcome these challenges.

Item ID: 45381
Item Type: Article (Research - C1)
ISSN: 2167-8359
Keywords: coral, bacteria, fluorescence in situ hybridization, holobiont, in situ visualization
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Copyright: © 2016 Wada et al. 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) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.

Date Deposited: 31 Aug 2016 02:29
FoR Codes: 31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3107 Microbiology > 310703 Microbial ecology @ 100%
SEO Codes: 97 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 970106 Expanding Knowledge in the Biological Sciences @ 100%
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