Transcriptomic responses of Exaiptasia diaphana to sequential stress
This project aims to identify transcriptomic responses of the model cnidarian Exaiptasia diaphana to pathogen exposure following recovery from heat stress, with an emphasis on expression of putative immune transcripts. We analyzed differential expression to compare the immune responses of anemones not exposed to heat stress prior to pathogen challenge to the immune responses of anemones that underwent heat stress and recovery prior to pathogen challenge. We also generated weighted gene correlation networks to identify clusters of similarly expressed transcripts and correlated them to physiological metrics of interest. Data will contribute to our broader understanding of the potential immune mechanisms driving variation in disease susceptibility following coral heat stress/bleaching.