Transcriptome, expression, and activity analyses reveal a vital heat shock protein 70 in the stress response of stony coral Pocillopora damicornis

Abstract

Coral bleaching occurs worldwide with increasing frequencies and intensities, which is caused by the stress response of stony coral to environmental change, especially increased sea surface temperature. In the present study, transcriptome, expression, and activity analyses were employed to illustrate the underlying molecular mechanisms of heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) in the stress response of coral to environmental changes. The domain analyses of assembled transcripts revealed 30 HSP70 gene contigs in stony coral Pocillopora damicornis. One crucial HSP70 (PdHSP70) was observed, whose expressions were induced by both elevated temperature and ammonium after expression difference analysis. The complete complementary DNA (cDNA) sequence of PdHSP70 was identified, which encoded a polypeptide of 650 amino acids with a molecular weight of 71.93 kDa. The deduced amino acid sequence of PdHSP70 contained a HSP70 domain (from Pro8 to Gly616), and it shared the highest similarity (95%) with HSP70 from Stylophora pistillata. The expression level of PdHSP70 gene increased significantly at 12 h, and returned to the initial level at 24 h after the stress of high temperature (32 °C). The cDNA fragment encoding the mature peptide of PdHSP70 was recombined and expressed in the prokaryotic expression system. The ATPase activity of recombinant PdHSP70 protein was determined, and it did not change significantly in a wide range of temperature from 25 to 40 °C. These results collectively suggested that PdHSP70 was a vital heat shock protein 70 in the stony coral P. damicornis, whose mRNA expression could be induced by diverse environmental stress and whose activity could remain stable under heat stress. PdHSP70 might be involved in the regulation of the bleaching owing to heat stress in the stony coral P. damicornis.

Local acclimatisation‐driven differential gene and protein expression patterns of Hsp70 in Acropora muricata: Implications for coral tolerance to bleaching

“…The highest relative levels of host hsp70 were recorded in near‐coast and reef samples collected in summer 2016. Results are in line with laboratory and field studies that reported increases in hsp expression following high heat‐light stress (reviewed in Louis et al., 2017; Poquita‐Du et al., 2019; Traylor‐Knowles et al., 2017; Zhang et al., 2018).…”

Transcriptional response of the heat shock gene hsp70 aligns with differences in stress susceptibility of shallow-water corals from the Mediterranean Sea

“…HSP70s are broadly studied, highly conserved molecular mediators of environmental acclimatization in marine organisms (Fabbri et al, 2008;Morris et al, 2013), and amongst the primary early responders to stress in corals (Louis et al, 2017;Traylor-Knowles et al, 2017). As a consequence, many stud ies assessed hsp70 expression in tropical corals under different abiotic and biotic cues, including temperature (Maor-Landaw et al, 2014;Seveso et al, 2014;Zhang et al, 2018), pH/pC0 2 (Moya et al, 2015), salinity (Ellison et al, 2017), pollutants (Jovanovic and Guzmän, 2014;Overmans et al, 2018;Venn et al, 2009), bacterial infections (Brown et al, 2013;Seveso et al, 2016), or host-symbiont interplay to maintain holobiont homeostasis (Levy et al, 2011;Rosic et al, 2014b). These stud ies suggest that cnidarian hsp70 gene expression and function is similar across multiple stressors and comparable to vertebrates (Kvitt et al, 2016).…”

Characterization, expression profiling, and thermal tolerance analysis of heat shock protein 70 in pine sawyer beetle, Monochamus alternatus hope (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae)

“…Then, 10 μl of 55% HClO 4 was added to stop the reaction. The mixtures were cooled on ice for 10 min and centrifuged at 12,000 rpm for 3 min (Zhang et al ., 2018). The concentration of inorganic phosphorus was determined with a Micro Tissue Inorganic Phosphorus Content Assay Kit (Solarbio, Beijing, China).…”

“…tabaci under high temperature (Vladimír et al ., 2009; Wang et al ., 2019 b ). Notably, in plants, further research in vitro has revealed that ATPase activity of HSP70 is stable under high temperature, thus corroborating the molecular chaperone function of HSP70s (Zhang et al ., 2018). However, little is known about the molecular chaperone activity of HSP70s in insects, especially in Coleopteran beetles.…”