Laboratory-Cultured Strains of the Sea Anemone Exaiptasia Reveal Distinct Bacterial Communities

Abstract

Exaiptasia is a laboratory sea anemone model system for stony corals. Two clonal strains are commonly used, referred to as H2 and CC7, that originate from two genetically distinct lineages and that differ in their Symbiodinium specificity. However, little is known about their other microbial associations. Here, we examined and compared the taxonomic composition of the bacterial assemblages of these two symbiotic Exaiptasia strains, both of which have been cultured in the laboratory long-term under identical conditions. We found distinct bacterial microbiota for each strain, indicating the presence of host-specific microbial consortia. Putative differences in the bacterial functional profiles (i.e., enrichment and depletion of various metabolic processes) based on taxonomic inference were also detected, further suggesting functional differences of the microbiomes associated with these lineages. Our study contributes to the current knowledge of the Exaiptasia holobiont by comparing the bacterial diversity of two commonly used strains as models for coral research.

Peer Review #1 of "First insight into the viral community of the cnidarian model metaorganism Aiptasia using RNA-Seq data (v0.2)"

“…Firstly, this lends further support that RNA-Seq data can be queried to gain a first insight into viral diversity. Secondly, it supports the notion that Aiptasia indeed is a suitable model of cnidarian-dinoflagellate symbiosis, not only at the level of host and algal symbiont biology (Baumgarten et al, 2015), but also at the level of bacteria (Röthig et al, 2016;Herrera et al, 2017) and viruses. It should be noted, however, that…”

“…Manuscript to be reviewed Guse & Pringle, 2014;Wolfowicz et al, 2016) and bacteria (Röthig et al, 2016;Herrera et al, 2017), the viral community composition, to our knowledge, has not yet been investigated.…”

Microbiota characterization of Exaiptasia diaphana from the Great Barrier Reef

“…Two core Thalassobius ASVs comprised~8%G of the collective AIMS1-4 bacterial communities. However, they were not detected in the other anemones and thus did not match the Thalassobius ASV previously reported as a core member in CC7 and H2 [14,20]. Thalassobius have been identified in many coral studies, particularly studies on coral bleaching [66] and diseases [67,68], but no specific role, pathogenic or otherwise, was suggested.…”

“…Phyla identified in the collective AIMS1-4 animals, wild proxies, CC7[14] a , H2[20] a , and previously reported[19]. SeeSupplementary Table S3, Additional file 5 for individual AIMS1-4valuesValues for CC7 and H2 may differ from those previously reported in[14,20] due to differences in bioinformatic methods. b ✓ = detected; empty cell = not detected minutum (previously Symbiodinium Clade B, sub-clade B1…”

Contrasting Antibacterial Capabilities of the Surface Mucus Layer From Three Symbiotic Cnidarians

“…But in medusas, only the bacteriafree mucus layer demonstrated inhibition of the growth of Aurantimonas sp., which was also lost in bleached animals. Apparently, E. pallida does not have a characteristic core bacterial community (Brown et al, 2017;Herrera et al, 2017). This community varies according to the environmental conditions and does so rapidly (Herrera et al, 2017).…”