Temporal and spatial expression patterns of biomineralization proteins during early development in the stony coral Pocillopora damicornis.
Reef-building corals begin as non-calcifying larvae that, upon settling, rapidly begin to accrete skeleton and a protein-rich skeletal organic matrix that attach them to the reef. Here, we characterized the temporal and spatial expression pattern of a suite of biomineralization genes during three stages of larval development in the reef-building coral Pocillopora damicornis: stage I, newly released; stage II, oral-aborally compressed and stage III, settled and calcifying spat. Transcriptome analysis revealed 3882 differentially expressed genes that clustered into four distinctly different patterns of expression change across the three developmental stages. Immunolocalization analysis further reveals the spatial arrangement of coral acid-rich proteins (CARPs) in the overall architecture of the emerging skeleton. These results provide the first analysis of the timing of the biomineralization 'toolkit' in the early life history of a stony coral.
Environmental Biophysics and Molecular Ecology Program, Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Kaneohe, HI 96744, USA tmass@univ.haifa.ac.il.
Tali
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7298-290X
T
Mass
Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, Kaneohe, HI 96744, USA.
Hollie M
HM
Putnam
Environmental Biophysics and Molecular Ecology Program, Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Kaneohe, HI 96744, USA.
Jeana L
JL
Drake
Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA.
Ehud
E
Zelzion
Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, Kaneohe, HI 96744, USA.
Ruth D
RD
Gates
Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA.
Debashish
D
Bhattacharya
Environmental Biophysics and Molecular Ecology Program, Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Kaneohe, HI 96744, USA Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA.
Paul G
PG
Falkowski
D000818:Animals; D037421:Anthozoa / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000378:metabolism*; D002113:Calcification, Physiologic; D057894:Coral Reefs; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D011506:Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D059467:Transcriptome
D011506:Proteins
acidic proteins; biomineralization; coral development; gene expression