Compartment-specific transcriptomics in a reef-building coral exposed to elevated temperatures

Although rising ocean temperatures threaten scleractinian corals and the reefs they construct, certain reef corals can acclimate to elevated temperatures to which they are rarely exposed in situ. Specimens of the Indo-Pacific reef coral Pocillopora damicornis collected from upwelling reefs of Southern Taiwan were previously found to have survived a 36-week exposure to 30°C, a temperature they encounter infrequently and one that elicits the breakdown of the coral-dinoflagellate (genus Symbiodinium) endosymbiosis in many corals of the Pacific Ocean. In order to gain insight into the sub-cellular pathways utilized by both the coral hosts and their mutualistic Symbiodinium populations to acclimate to this temperature, mRNAs from both control (27°C) and high (30°C) temperature samples were sequenced on an Illumina platform and assembled into a 236,435-contig transcriptome. These P. damicornis specimens were found to be ~60% anthozoan and 40% microbe (Symbiodinium, other eukaryotic microbes, ...

尽管海洋温度上升正威胁着石珊瑚（scleractinian corals）及其构建的珊瑚礁，但部分造礁珊瑚可对其原生环境中罕见暴露的高温环境产生驯化适应。此前研究发现，采自中国台湾南部上升流礁的印度-太平洋造礁珊瑚指形鹿角珊瑚（Pocillopora damicornis）样本，能够在30℃环境下存活36周；该温度在其原生栖息地中较为罕见，且可诱发太平洋多数珊瑚出现珊瑚-虫黄藻（Symbiodinium属）内共生体的解体现象。为深入解析珊瑚宿主与其共生虫黄藻种群适应该高温的亚细胞通路，研究人员对对照组（27℃）与高温处理组（30℃）样本的信使RNA（mRNA）进行了Illumina测序平台测序，并组装得到包含236435个重叠群（contig）的转录组。经检测，该指形鹿角珊瑚样本的转录组中约60%序列来自珊瑚纲生物，剩余40%则来自各类微生物（包括虫黄藻、其他真核微生物等）