Coral Venom Toxins

Schmidt, Casey A.; Daly, Norelle L.; Wilson, David T.

doi:10.3389/fevo.2019.00320

Cited by 22 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 72 publications

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“…In addition, experiments on Acropora millepora and Pocillopora damicornis showed increased heterotrophic feeding efficiency in colonies from inshore reefs compared with conspecifics sourced from offshore 74 . Since cnidarians including corals rely on toxins injected into prey to assist with heterotrophic feeding 76 an important aspect of this inshore adaptation may involve modifications to the toxin repertoire. In support of this we observed strong selection on two homologs of anemone pore-forming toxins, DELTA actitoxin (aten_0.1.m1.22362) and Delta thalatoxin (aten_0.1.m1.29056).…”

Section: Andmentioning

confidence: 99%

Signatures of selection in the coral holobiont reveal complex adaptations to inshore environments driven by Holocene climate change

Cooke

Ying

Fôret

et al. 2020

Preprint

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The inshore region of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) became inundated at the start of the Holocene when sea levels rose. Like many inshore reefs worldwide it harbours extensive coral assemblages despite being subject to relatively high turbidity, freshwater input and thermal fluctuations. To investigate how the coral holobiont has adapted to these conditions we used shallow whole genome resequencing of 148 Acropora tenuis colonies from five inshore locations to model demographic history, identify signatures of selection and profile symbiont communities. We also assembled the genome of Acropora tenuis from long-read sequencing, providing one of the most contiguous and complete coral genomes to date. We show that corals from Magnetic Island are genetically distinct from reefs further north reflecting a Pleistocene (250-600Kya) split, whereas photosymbiont genotypes differed between reefs in a pattern more likely to reflect contemporary (Holocene) conditions. We also identified loci in the coral host genome with signatures of positive selection in the northern population and demonstrate using coalescent simulations that these are unlikely to be accounted for by demographic history. Associated with these we find genes with roles in a complex range of processes including heterotrophy, osmotic regulation, skeletal development and establishment and maintenance of symbiosis. Our results show that A. tenuis holobionts from the inshore GBR have been significantly shaped by their environment and provide an example of complex adaptations in response to past climate change.

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Section: Andmentioning

confidence: 99%

Signatures of selection in the coral holobiont reveal complex adaptations to inshore environments driven by Holocene climate change

Cooke

Ying

Fôret

et al. 2020

Preprint

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“…First, we observed reductions in feeding behaviour under both thermal challenges ( Figure 2B), which were corroborated with convergent downregulation of genes associated with locomotion (GO: 0040011) and response to mechanical stimulus (GO: 0009612). DELTAthalatoxin-Avl2a (AVL2A) was downregulated under both challenges; thalatoxin and other toxins are used while feeding in cnidarians (Schmidt et al 2019) and are categorized under the nematocyst (GO:0042151) GO category. Furthermore, myosin regulatory light polypeptide 9 (MYL9) was downregulated under both thermal challenges ( Figure 4B) and this gene plays an important role in cell contractile activity via phosphorylation (Kumar et al 1989) and may be instrumental for coral heterotrophy.…”

Section: Astrangia Poculata Exhibits a Convergent Stress Response Repmentioning

confidence: 99%

Divergent thermal challenges elicit convergent stress signatures in aposymbioticAstrangia poculata

Wuitchik¹,

Almanzar²,

Benson³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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7Corals are threatened worldwide due to rapidly warming oceans associated with anthropogenic 8 climate change. A growing body of work has explored how corals respond to heat stress, however, 9responses of corals across the full range of their thermal breadth are rarely explored even though 10 winter colds are also known to induce coral stress. Here, we leverage the temperate stony coral, 11Astrangia poculata, which naturally exhibits a facultative symbiosis with Symbiodiniaceae, to 12 explicitly examine how thermal challenges influence coral hosts in isolation from their symbionts. 13Aposymbiotic A. poculata were collected from Woods Hole, MA, the northern range limit for this 14 species. Corals were thermally challenged in two independent common garden experiments (Heat 15 challenge: 31˚C, 10 days; Cold challenge: 6˚C, 16 days) to determine the effects of divergent 16thermal stressors. Behavioural responses to food stimuli were monitored throughout the thermal 17 challenges and genome-wide gene expression profiling (TagSeq) was used to characterize 18 molecular underpinnings of the coral's response to stress in its aposymbiotic state. Behaviourally, 19both thermal challenges induced polyp retraction and colonies failed to respond to food stimuli. 20Surprisingly, seven times as many genes were differentially expressed under cold challenge heat 21 challenge. Despite a greater magnitude of response under cold challenge, significant similarities 22 in gene expression were detected across the two thermal challenge experiments, with many of the 23 most responsive genes having been previously implicated in coral heat stress response. Given that 24 our data were generated from aposymbiotic colonies, we hypothesize that these genes previously 25linked to heat stress are more likely indicative of a generalized stress response. Overall this work 26 highlights the unique insights facultatively symbiotic corals offer for deciphering the stress 27 response of the coral host in the absence of bleaching. 28 29 30

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“…Within that limited number there is even greater taxonomic bias; almost 90% of anthozoan toxins are from the Actinioidea superfamily of sea anemones [ 27 , 30 ], meaning less than 50 taxa out of 1100 known sea anemone species contribute to the database of annotated cnidarian toxins [ 54 ]. This taxon bias limits researchers’ ability to discover novel therapeutic peptides and scaffolds from sea anemones, as well as limits to search for potential drug candidates in other anthozoan groups such as corals [ 58 ] and zoanthids [ 47 , 48 , 49 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transcriptomic Analysis of Four Cerianthid (Cnidaria, Ceriantharia) Venoms

et al. 2020

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Tube anemones, or cerianthids, are a phylogenetically informative group of cnidarians with complex life histories, including a pelagic larval stage and tube-dwelling adult stage, both known to utilize venom in stinging-cell rich tentacles. Cnidarians are an entirely venomous group that utilize their proteinaceous-dominated toxins to capture prey and defend against predators, in addition to several other ecological functions, including intraspecific interactions. At present there are no studies describing the venom for any species within cerianthids. Given their unique development, ecology, and distinct phylogenetic-placement within Cnidaria, our objective is to evaluate the venom-like gene diversity of four species of cerianthids from newly collected transcriptomic data. We identified 525 venom-like genes between all four species. The venom-gene profile for each species was dominated by enzymatic protein and peptide families, which is consistent with previous findings in other cnidarian venoms. However, we found few toxins that are typical of sea anemones and corals, and furthermore, three of the four species express toxin-like genes closely related to potent pore-forming toxins in box jellyfish. Our study is the first to provide a survey of the putative venom composition of cerianthids and contributes to our general understanding of the diversity of cnidarian toxins.

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Coral Venom Toxins

Cited by 22 publications

References 72 publications

Signatures of selection in the coral holobiont reveal complex adaptations to inshore environments driven by Holocene climate change

Signatures of selection in the coral holobiont reveal complex adaptations to inshore environments driven by Holocene climate change

Divergent thermal challenges elicit convergent stress signatures in aposymbioticAstrangia poculata

Transcriptomic Analysis of Four Cerianthid (Cnidaria, Ceriantharia) Venoms

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