Transcriptomic differences between bleached and unbleached hydrozoan Millepora complanata following the 2015-2016 ENSO in the Mexican Caribbean

The 2015-2016 El Niño-southern oscillation or "ENSO" caused many colonies that live in the Mexican Caribbean to experience extensive bleaching. The purpose of this work was to analyze the effect of bleaching on the cellular response of , employing a transcriptomic approach with RNA-seq. As...

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Published in:	PeerJ (San Francisco, CA) CA), 2023-01, Vol.11, p.e14626-e14626, Article e14626
Main Authors:	Hernández Elizárraga, Víctor H, Olguín-López, Norma, Hernández-Matehuala, Rosalina, Caballero-Pérez, Juan, Ibarra-Alvarado, César, Rojas-Molina, Alejandra
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Algae Analysis Animals Anthozoa - metabolism Bleaching Caribbean Region Chlorophyll Colonies Coral bleaching Coral reefs DNA binding proteins DNA-directed RNA polymerase Ecology El Nino Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid Gene expression Gene Expression Profiling Gene regulation Genes Genetic testing Genetic transcription Genomics Homeostasis Hydrocoral Hydrozoa Marine Biology Metabolism Millepora complanata Oxidative stress Oxidoreductase Proteins RNA RNA-seq Southern Oscillation Symbiosis Thermal stress Transcription factors Transcriptome Transcriptomics
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Summary:	The 2015-2016 El Niño-southern oscillation or "ENSO" caused many colonies that live in the Mexican Caribbean to experience extensive bleaching. The purpose of this work was to analyze the effect of bleaching on the cellular response of , employing a transcriptomic approach with RNA-seq. As expected, bleached specimens contained a significantly lower chlorophyll content than unbleached hydrocorals. The presence of algae of the genera and was only found in tissues of unbleached , which could be associated to the greater resistance that these colonies exhibited during bleaching. We found that 299 genes were differentially expressed in bleached colonies following the 2015-2016 ENSO in the Mexican Caribbean. The differential expression analysis of bleached specimens evidenced enriched terms for functional categories, such as ribosome, RNA polymerase and basal transcription factors, chaperone, oxidoreductase, among others. Our results suggest that the heat-shock response mechanisms displayed by include: an up-regulation of endogenous antioxidant defenses; a higher expression of heat stress response genes; up-regulation of transcription-related genes, higher expression of genes associated to transport processes, inter alia. This study constitutes the first differential gene expression analysi of the molecular response of a reef-forming hydrozoan during bleaching.
ISSN:	2167-8359 2167-8359