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Gene expression patterns of red sea urchins (Mesocentrotus franciscanus) exposed to different combinations of temperature and pCO(2) during early development

BACKGROUND: The red sea urchin Mesocentrotus franciscanus is an ecologically important kelp forest herbivore and an economically valuable wild fishery species. To examine how M. franciscanus responds to its environment on a molecular level, differences in gene expression patterns were observed in em...

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Autores principales: Wong, Juliet M., Hofmann, Gretchen E.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7792118/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33413121
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12864-020-07327-x
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author Wong, Juliet M.
Hofmann, Gretchen E.
author_facet Wong, Juliet M.
Hofmann, Gretchen E.
author_sort Wong, Juliet M.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The red sea urchin Mesocentrotus franciscanus is an ecologically important kelp forest herbivore and an economically valuable wild fishery species. To examine how M. franciscanus responds to its environment on a molecular level, differences in gene expression patterns were observed in embryos raised under combinations of two temperatures (13 °C or 17 °C) and two pCO(2) levels (475 μatm or 1050 μatm). These combinations mimic various present-day conditions measured during and between upwelling events in the highly dynamic California Current System with the exception of the 17 °C and 1050 μatm combination, which does not currently occur. However, as ocean warming and acidification continues, warmer temperatures and higher pCO(2) conditions are expected to increase in frequency and to occur simultaneously. The transcriptomic responses of the embryos were assessed at two developmental stages (gastrula and prism) in light of previously described plasticity in body size and thermotolerance under these temperature and pCO(2) treatments. RESULTS: Although transcriptomic patterns primarily varied by developmental stage, there were pronounced differences in gene expression as a result of the treatment conditions. Temperature and pCO(2) treatments led to the differential expression of genes related to the cellular stress response, transmembrane transport, metabolic processes, and the regulation of gene expression. At each developmental stage, temperature contributed significantly to the observed variance in gene expression, which was also correlated to the phenotypic attributes of the embryos. On the other hand, the transcriptomic response to pCO(2) was relatively muted, particularly at the prism stage. CONCLUSIONS: M. franciscanus exhibited transcriptomic plasticity under different temperatures, indicating their capacity for a molecular-level response that may facilitate red sea urchins facing ocean warming as climate change continues. In contrast, the lack of a robust transcriptomic response, in combination with observations of decreased body size, under elevated pCO(2) levels suggest that this species may be negatively affected by ocean acidification. High present-day pCO(2) conditions that occur due to coastal upwelling may already be influencing populations of M. franciscanus. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12864-020-07327-x.
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spelling pubmed-77921182021-01-11 Gene expression patterns of red sea urchins (Mesocentrotus franciscanus) exposed to different combinations of temperature and pCO(2) during early development Wong, Juliet M. Hofmann, Gretchen E. BMC Genomics Research Article BACKGROUND: The red sea urchin Mesocentrotus franciscanus is an ecologically important kelp forest herbivore and an economically valuable wild fishery species. To examine how M. franciscanus responds to its environment on a molecular level, differences in gene expression patterns were observed in embryos raised under combinations of two temperatures (13 °C or 17 °C) and two pCO(2) levels (475 μatm or 1050 μatm). These combinations mimic various present-day conditions measured during and between upwelling events in the highly dynamic California Current System with the exception of the 17 °C and 1050 μatm combination, which does not currently occur. However, as ocean warming and acidification continues, warmer temperatures and higher pCO(2) conditions are expected to increase in frequency and to occur simultaneously. The transcriptomic responses of the embryos were assessed at two developmental stages (gastrula and prism) in light of previously described plasticity in body size and thermotolerance under these temperature and pCO(2) treatments. RESULTS: Although transcriptomic patterns primarily varied by developmental stage, there were pronounced differences in gene expression as a result of the treatment conditions. Temperature and pCO(2) treatments led to the differential expression of genes related to the cellular stress response, transmembrane transport, metabolic processes, and the regulation of gene expression. At each developmental stage, temperature contributed significantly to the observed variance in gene expression, which was also correlated to the phenotypic attributes of the embryos. On the other hand, the transcriptomic response to pCO(2) was relatively muted, particularly at the prism stage. CONCLUSIONS: M. franciscanus exhibited transcriptomic plasticity under different temperatures, indicating their capacity for a molecular-level response that may facilitate red sea urchins facing ocean warming as climate change continues. In contrast, the lack of a robust transcriptomic response, in combination with observations of decreased body size, under elevated pCO(2) levels suggest that this species may be negatively affected by ocean acidification. High present-day pCO(2) conditions that occur due to coastal upwelling may already be influencing populations of M. franciscanus. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12864-020-07327-x. BioMed Central 2021-01-07 /pmc/articles/PMC7792118/ /pubmed/33413121 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12864-020-07327-x Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open AccessThis 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 licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence 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 licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research Article
Wong, Juliet M.
Hofmann, Gretchen E.
Gene expression patterns of red sea urchins (Mesocentrotus franciscanus) exposed to different combinations of temperature and pCO(2) during early development
title Gene expression patterns of red sea urchins (Mesocentrotus franciscanus) exposed to different combinations of temperature and pCO(2) during early development
title_full Gene expression patterns of red sea urchins (Mesocentrotus franciscanus) exposed to different combinations of temperature and pCO(2) during early development
title_fullStr Gene expression patterns of red sea urchins (Mesocentrotus franciscanus) exposed to different combinations of temperature and pCO(2) during early development
title_full_unstemmed Gene expression patterns of red sea urchins (Mesocentrotus franciscanus) exposed to different combinations of temperature and pCO(2) during early development
title_short Gene expression patterns of red sea urchins (Mesocentrotus franciscanus) exposed to different combinations of temperature and pCO(2) during early development
title_sort gene expression patterns of red sea urchins (mesocentrotus franciscanus) exposed to different combinations of temperature and pco(2) during early development
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7792118/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33413121
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12864-020-07327-x
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