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Nitric oxide production rather than oxidative stress and cell death is associated with the onset of coral bleaching in Pocillopora acuta

Elevated seawater temperatures associated with climate change lead to coral bleaching. While the ultimate causes of bleaching are well understood, the proximate physiological mechanisms underlying the bleaching response are not as well defined. Here we measured nitric oxide synthase activity, oxidat...

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Autores principales: Jury, Christopher P., Boeing, Brian M., Trapido-Rosenthal, Henry, Gates, Ruth D., Toonen, Robert J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9166681/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35669951
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.13321
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author Jury, Christopher P.
Boeing, Brian M.
Trapido-Rosenthal, Henry
Gates, Ruth D.
Toonen, Robert J.
author_facet Jury, Christopher P.
Boeing, Brian M.
Trapido-Rosenthal, Henry
Gates, Ruth D.
Toonen, Robert J.
author_sort Jury, Christopher P.
collection PubMed
description Elevated seawater temperatures associated with climate change lead to coral bleaching. While the ultimate causes of bleaching are well understood, the proximate physiological mechanisms underlying the bleaching response are not as well defined. Here we measured nitric oxide synthase activity, oxidative stress, and cell death in algal symbionts (Symbiodinaceae) freshly isolated from the reef-building coral Pocillopora acuta collected in the field under natural non-bleaching conditions and from corals experimentally exposed to elevated temperatures. Nitric oxide synthase activity in the algal symbionts was >3 orders of magnitude higher than that of the host and increased dramatically with increasing temperature and time of exposure (up to 72 h), consistent with the onset of bleaching for these corals. Oxidative stress and cell death among the algal symbionts were highest in coral holobionts exposed to intermediate as opposed to maximal temperatures, suggesting that these mechanisms are not proximal triggers for bleaching in this species. Our results point to nitric oxide production by the algal symbionts, rather than symbiont dysfunction, as a more important driver of coral bleaching under acute thermal stress in this coral.
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spelling pubmed-91666812022-06-05 Nitric oxide production rather than oxidative stress and cell death is associated with the onset of coral bleaching in Pocillopora acuta Jury, Christopher P. Boeing, Brian M. Trapido-Rosenthal, Henry Gates, Ruth D. Toonen, Robert J. PeerJ Cell Biology Elevated seawater temperatures associated with climate change lead to coral bleaching. While the ultimate causes of bleaching are well understood, the proximate physiological mechanisms underlying the bleaching response are not as well defined. Here we measured nitric oxide synthase activity, oxidative stress, and cell death in algal symbionts (Symbiodinaceae) freshly isolated from the reef-building coral Pocillopora acuta collected in the field under natural non-bleaching conditions and from corals experimentally exposed to elevated temperatures. Nitric oxide synthase activity in the algal symbionts was >3 orders of magnitude higher than that of the host and increased dramatically with increasing temperature and time of exposure (up to 72 h), consistent with the onset of bleaching for these corals. Oxidative stress and cell death among the algal symbionts were highest in coral holobionts exposed to intermediate as opposed to maximal temperatures, suggesting that these mechanisms are not proximal triggers for bleaching in this species. Our results point to nitric oxide production by the algal symbionts, rather than symbiont dysfunction, as a more important driver of coral bleaching under acute thermal stress in this coral. PeerJ Inc. 2022-06-01 /pmc/articles/PMC9166681/ /pubmed/35669951 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.13321 Text en © 2022 Jury et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , 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.
spellingShingle Cell Biology
Jury, Christopher P.
Boeing, Brian M.
Trapido-Rosenthal, Henry
Gates, Ruth D.
Toonen, Robert J.
Nitric oxide production rather than oxidative stress and cell death is associated with the onset of coral bleaching in Pocillopora acuta
title Nitric oxide production rather than oxidative stress and cell death is associated with the onset of coral bleaching in Pocillopora acuta
title_full Nitric oxide production rather than oxidative stress and cell death is associated with the onset of coral bleaching in Pocillopora acuta
title_fullStr Nitric oxide production rather than oxidative stress and cell death is associated with the onset of coral bleaching in Pocillopora acuta
title_full_unstemmed Nitric oxide production rather than oxidative stress and cell death is associated with the onset of coral bleaching in Pocillopora acuta
title_short Nitric oxide production rather than oxidative stress and cell death is associated with the onset of coral bleaching in Pocillopora acuta
title_sort nitric oxide production rather than oxidative stress and cell death is associated with the onset of coral bleaching in pocillopora acuta
topic Cell Biology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9166681/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35669951
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.13321
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