BE/GENEN Coral Reef Genomics: A Genome Wide Approach to the Study of Cnidarian Symbiosis

在各种各样的植物和动物群落中，共生相互作用是常见和重要的。在更复杂的共生关系中，底栖海洋无脊椎动物，特别是刺胞动物和光合鞭毛藻类（虫黄藻）之间的共生关系。这种类型的共生在形成一个重要的海洋生态系统——珊瑚礁中起着关键作用。对于这些共同生物关系的建立和维持的分子基础，我们所知甚少。硬核珊瑚与其虫黄藻之间的共生关系极易受到环境因素变化的影响，例如海水温度升高和/或光照水平升高。全球变暖破坏了这些共生关系（珊瑚白化），导致许多珊瑚随后死亡，从而影响了世界各地的珊瑚礁。现在迫切需要更好地了解分子和细胞的相互作用，这对这些共生的功能完整性至关重要。ppi已经组建了一个团队，包括珊瑚礁生物学家（Coffroth, Szmant），他们在研究海洋生态系统中的共生关系方面有着长期的实地经验；基因组科学家（Medina, Manohar, Nelson, Terry），他们在高通量基因组技术和由这些方法产生的数据分析方面拥有广泛的专业知识；教育专家（Tang），他们通过博物馆/水族馆设置的教育项目，在公众宣传方面具有很高的影响力。PIs团队中有几名成员是少数族裔，包括六名女性（科夫罗斯、马诺哈、麦地那、什曼特、唐和特里），两名西班牙裔（麦地那、什曼特）和两名亚裔（马诺哈、唐）。pi正在使用从表达序列标签（EST）数据开发的微阵列表达谱来识别加勒比海热带珊瑚礁地区蒙塔straea faveolata互惠系统中涉及宿主-虫黄藻共生的基因和细胞途径。他们正在进行基因操作实验，以确定这些基因的功能。当对含有它们的细菌人工染色体（BAC）克隆进行测序时，这种方法将有助于了解这些基因在宿主和共生体中是如何被调节的。这项研究是第一次尝试利用基因表达的全基因组分析来研究一种非常重要的互惠关系。pi正在通过几个外展计划提供该项目产生的所有资源（ESTs、微阵列、cDNA和BAC文库）。更好地了解珊瑚礁生态系统中宿主-共生体的关系可以对大气和海洋科学、保护生物学以及珊瑚微生物疾病的研究和诊断产生影响。因此，这个项目将引起更广泛的科学界的极大兴趣。

Symbiotic interactions are common and important in a wide variety of plant and animal communities. Among the more complex symbioses is the mutualism between benthic marine invertebrates, especially cnidarians, and photosynthetic dinoflagellate algae (zooxanthellae). This type of symbiosis has had a key role in the formation of an important marine ecosystem, the coral reef. Little is known about the molecular basis for the establishment and maintenance of these common biological relationships. The symbiosis between scleractinian corals and their zooxanthellae is highly susceptible to changes in environmental factors such as elevated seawater temperature and/or elevated light levels. Global warming has impacted coral reefs world wide by causing the disruption of these symbioses (coral bleaching), causing many corals to subsequently die. It is now urgent to gain a better understanding of the molecular and cellular interactions that are critical to the functional integrity of these symbioses. The PIs have assembled a team of coral reef biologists (Coffroth, Szmant) with a long record of field experience in studying symbiotic relationships in marine ecosystems, genome scientists (Medina, Manohar, Nelson, Terry) with wide-ranging expertise in high throughput genomic techniques and analysis of data generated by such methods, and educational experts (Tang) with high impact capabilities for public outreach through the educational programs in a museum/aquarium setting. The PIs have several members on the team who are part of minority groups, including six women (Coffroth, Manohar, Medina, Szmant, Tang, and Terry), two Hispanic (Medina, Szmant), and two Asian-Americans (Manohar, Tang).The PIs are using microarray expression profiling developed from expressed sequence tags (EST) data to identify genes and cellular pathways involved in the host-zooxanthellae symbiosis in the Montastraea faveolata mutualistic system from Caribbean tropical reef areas. They are performing gene manipulation experiments to establish function of these genes. When accompanied by sequencing of bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) clones containing them, this approach will contribute to understanding how these genes are regulated in both the host and the symbiont. The research is the first attempt to look at a very important mutualistic relationship using a genome wide analysis of gene expression. The PIs are making all the resources generated by this project (ESTs, microarrays, cDNA and BAC libraries) available through several outreach programs. Gaining a better understanding of host-symbiont relationships in coral reef ecosystems can have implications for atmospheric and ocean sciences, conservation biology and the study and diagnosis of microbial diseases in corals. Consequently, this project will be of great interest to a broader scientific community.