title: Gene expression associated with white syndromes in a reef building coral, Acropora hyacinthus.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Corals are capable of launching diverse immune defenses at the site of direct contact with pathogens, but the molecular mechanisms of this activity and the colony-wide effects of such stressors remain poorly understood. Here we compared gene expression profiles in eight healthy Acropora hyacinthus colonies against eight colonies exhibiting tissue loss commonly associated with white syndromes, all collected from a natural reef environment near Palau. Two types of tissues were sampled from diseased corals: visibly affected and apparently healthy.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Tag-based RNA-Seq followed by weighted gene co-expression network analysis identified groups of co-regulated differentially expressed genes between all health states (disease lesion, apparently healthy tissues of diseased colonies, and fully healthy). Differences between healthy and diseased tissues indicate activation of several innate immunity and tissue repair pathways accompanied by reduced calcification and the switch towards metabolic reliance on stored lipids. Unaffected parts of diseased colonies, although displaying a trend towards these changes, were not significantly different from fully healthy samples. Still, network analysis identified a group of genes, suggestive of altered immunity state, that were specifically up-regulated in unaffected parts of diseased colonies.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Similarity of fully healthy samples to apparently healthy parts of diseased colonies indicates that systemic effects of white syndromes on A. hyacinthus are weak, which implies that the coral colony is largely able to sustain its physiological performance despite disease. The genes specifically up-regulated in unaffected parts of diseased colonies, instead of being the consequence of disease, might be related to the originally higher susceptibility of these colonies to naturally occurring white syndromes.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA. rachelwright8@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Rachel M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Wright
authors.affiliation: Department of Integrative Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA. aglyamova@austin.utexas.edu.
authors.forename: Galina V
authors.initials: GV
authors.lastname: Aglyamova
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, USA. eli.meyer@science.oregonstate.edu.
authors.forename: Eli
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.affiliation: Department of Integrative Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA. matz@utexas.edu.
authors.forename: Mikhail V
authors.initials: MV
authors.lastname: Matz
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D037421:Anthozoa / Q000235:genetics*; D057894:Coral Reefs; D063990:Gene Ontology; D053263:Gene Regulatory Networks; D017423:Sequence Analysis, RNA; D059467:Transcriptome