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Genetic Signature of Resistance to White Band Disease in the Caribbean Staghorn Coral Acropora cervicornis
Coral reefs are declining worldwide due to multiple factors including rising sea surface temperature, ocean acidification, and disease outbreaks. Over the last 30 years, White Band Disease (WBD) alone has killed up to 95% of the Caribbean`s dominant shallow-water corals—the staghorn coral Acropora c...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2016
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4718514/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26784329 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0146636 |
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author | Libro, Silvia Vollmer, Steven V. |
author_facet | Libro, Silvia Vollmer, Steven V. |
author_sort | Libro, Silvia |
collection | PubMed |
description | Coral reefs are declining worldwide due to multiple factors including rising sea surface temperature, ocean acidification, and disease outbreaks. Over the last 30 years, White Band Disease (WBD) alone has killed up to 95% of the Caribbean`s dominant shallow-water corals—the staghorn coral Acropora cervicornis and the elkhorn coral A. palmata. Both corals are now listed on the US Endangered Species Act, and while their recovery has been slow, recent transmission surveys indicate that more than 5% of staghorn corals are disease resistant. Here we compared transcriptome-wide gene expression between resistant and susceptible staghorn corals exposed to WBD using in situ transmission assays. We identified constitutive gene expression differences underlying disease resistance that are independent from the immune response associated with disease exposure. Genes involved in RNA interference-mediated gene silencing, including Argonaute were up-regulated in resistant corals, whereas heat shock proteins (HSPs) were down-regulated. Up-regulation of Argonaute proteins indicates that post-transcriptional gene silencing plays a key, but previously unsuspected role in coral immunity and disease resistance. Constitutive expression of HSPs has been linked to thermal resilience in other Acropora corals, suggesting that the down-regulation of HSPs in disease resistant staghorn corals may confer a dual benefit of thermal resilience. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4718514 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-47185142016-01-30 Genetic Signature of Resistance to White Band Disease in the Caribbean Staghorn Coral Acropora cervicornis Libro, Silvia Vollmer, Steven V. PLoS One Research Article Coral reefs are declining worldwide due to multiple factors including rising sea surface temperature, ocean acidification, and disease outbreaks. Over the last 30 years, White Band Disease (WBD) alone has killed up to 95% of the Caribbean`s dominant shallow-water corals—the staghorn coral Acropora cervicornis and the elkhorn coral A. palmata. Both corals are now listed on the US Endangered Species Act, and while their recovery has been slow, recent transmission surveys indicate that more than 5% of staghorn corals are disease resistant. Here we compared transcriptome-wide gene expression between resistant and susceptible staghorn corals exposed to WBD using in situ transmission assays. We identified constitutive gene expression differences underlying disease resistance that are independent from the immune response associated with disease exposure. Genes involved in RNA interference-mediated gene silencing, including Argonaute were up-regulated in resistant corals, whereas heat shock proteins (HSPs) were down-regulated. Up-regulation of Argonaute proteins indicates that post-transcriptional gene silencing plays a key, but previously unsuspected role in coral immunity and disease resistance. Constitutive expression of HSPs has been linked to thermal resilience in other Acropora corals, suggesting that the down-regulation of HSPs in disease resistant staghorn corals may confer a dual benefit of thermal resilience. Public Library of Science 2016-01-19 /pmc/articles/PMC4718514/ /pubmed/26784329 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0146636 Text en © 2016 Libro, Vollmer http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Libro, Silvia Vollmer, Steven V. Genetic Signature of Resistance to White Band Disease in the Caribbean Staghorn Coral Acropora cervicornis |
title | Genetic Signature of Resistance to White Band Disease in the Caribbean Staghorn Coral Acropora cervicornis |
title_full | Genetic Signature of Resistance to White Band Disease in the Caribbean Staghorn Coral Acropora cervicornis |
title_fullStr | Genetic Signature of Resistance to White Band Disease in the Caribbean Staghorn Coral Acropora cervicornis |
title_full_unstemmed | Genetic Signature of Resistance to White Band Disease in the Caribbean Staghorn Coral Acropora cervicornis |
title_short | Genetic Signature of Resistance to White Band Disease in the Caribbean Staghorn Coral Acropora cervicornis |
title_sort | genetic signature of resistance to white band disease in the caribbean staghorn coral acropora cervicornis |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4718514/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26784329 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0146636 |
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