Joint study on the mechanism of recognition in corals

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We showed that contact reaction between young colonies of the coral Pocillopora damicornis changes. Someinitially fused pairs later showedincompatible fusion and then nonfusion. Many vacuoles and condensed nucleiwere observed at the interface of histoincompatible pairs suggesting that celldeath through apoptosis occurred.Corals belonging to different families did not always compete through extracoelenteric digestion. Though presence of coelenteric digestion indicates that the two corals belong to different species, absenc of coelenteric digestiondoes not mean the two corals are phylogenetically related.Yolk protein of five scieractinian corals were analyzed biochemically and immunologicaIIy. Yolk proteins of congeneric corals were similar to each otherwhile those from corals belonging to different families differ significantly.Abnormal growths (tumors) in Porites lobata and P.compressa showed skeletaimorphology different from normal polyp and reduced reproductive output. However, squashes of coichicine-treated blastulae obtained from crosses using gametes from tumors and mormal polyps revealed similarnumber of chromosomes.