Gene expression response to stony coral tissue loss disease transmission in M. cavernosa and O. faveolata from Florida
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Since 2014, corals within Florida’s Coral Reef have been dying at an unprecedented rate due to stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD). Here we describe the transcriptomic outcomes of three different SCTLD transmission experiments performed at the Smithsonian Marine Station and Mote Marine Laboratory between 2019 and 2020 on the corals Orbicella faveolata and Montastraea cavernosa. Overall, diseased O. faveolata had 2194 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) compared with healthy colonies, whereas diseased M. cavernosa had 582 DEGs compared with healthy colonies. Many significant DEGs were implicated in immunity, extracellular matrix rearrangement, and apoptosis. These included, but not limited to, peroxidases, collagens, Bax-like, fibrinogen-like, protein tyrosine kinase, and transforming growth factor beta. A gene module was identified that was significantly correlated to disease transmission. This module possessed many apoptosis and immune genes with high module membership indicating that a complex apoptosis and immune response is occurring in corals during SCTLD transmission. Overall, we found that O. faveolata and M. cavernosa exhibit an immune, apoptosis, and tissue rearrangement response to SCTLD. We propose that future studies should focus on examining early time points of infection, before the presence of lesions, to understand the activating mechanisms involved in SCTLD.
Date Issued
2021-06-29
Date Acceptance
2021-06-02
Citation
Frontiers in Marine Science, 2021, 8
ISSN
2296-7745
Publisher
Frontiers Media S.A.
Journal / Book Title
Frontiers in Marine Science
Volume
8
Copyright Statement
© 2021 Traylor-Knowles, Connelly, Young, Eaton, Muller, Paul, Ushijima, DeMerlis, Drown, Goncalves, Kron, Snyder, Martin and Rodriguez. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms
License URL
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
681563
Date Publish Online
2021-06-29