Deciphering the nature of the coral-Chromera association
Mohamed, Amin R., Cumbo, Vivian R., Harii, Saki, Shinzato, Chuya, Chan, Cheong Xin, Ragan, Mark A., Satoh, Nori, Ball, Eldon E., and Miller, David J. (2018) Deciphering the nature of the coral-Chromera association. ISME Journal: multidisciplinary journal of microbial ecology, 12 (3). pp. 776-790.
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Abstract
Since the discovery of Chromera velia as a novel coral-associated microalga, this organism has attracted interest because of its unique evolutionary position between the photosynthetic dinoflagellates and the parasitic apicomplexans. The nature of the relationship between Chromera and its coral host is controversial. Is it a mutualism, from which both participants benefit, a parasitic relationship, or a chance association? To better understand the interaction, larvae of the common Indo-Pacific reef-building coral Acropora digitifera were experimentally infected with Chromera, and the impact on the host transcriptome was assessed at 4, 12, and 48 h post-infection using Illumina RNA-Seq technology. The transcriptomic response of the coral to Chromera was complex and implies that host immunity is strongly suppressed, and both phagosome maturation and the apoptotic machinery is modified. These responses differ markedly from those described for infection with a competent strain of the coral mutualist Symbiodinium, instead resembling those of vertebrate hosts to parasites and/or pathogens such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Consistent with ecological studies suggesting that the association may be accidental, the transcriptional response of A. digitifera larvae leads us to conclude that Chromera could be a coral parasite, commensal, or accidental bystander, but certainly not a beneficial mutualist.
| Item ID: | 53517 |
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| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 1751-7370 |
| Copyright Information: | © The Author(s) 2018. Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Funders: | Australian Research Council (ARC), ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University (JCU) |
| Projects and Grants: | ARC Grant CE140100020 |
| Research Data: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject/398338 |
| Date Deposited: | 09 May 2018 07:39 |
| FoR Codes: | 31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3107 Microbiology > 310703 Microbial ecology @ 50% 31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3103 Ecology > 310305 Marine and estuarine ecology (incl. marine ichthyology) @ 50% |
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