The genome of Aiptasia , a sea anemone model for coral symbiosis

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1513318112
• Publication Date: 2015-09-01T02:19:53Z
• Authors: Sebastian Baumgarten; Oleg Simakov; Lisl Y. Esherick; Yi Jin Liew; Erik M. Lehnert; Craig T. Michell; Yong Li; Elizabeth A. Hamb...; Annika Guse; Matt E. Oates; Julian Gough; Virginia M. Weis; Manuel Aranda; John R. Pringle; Christian R. Vool...
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; Gene Transfer, Horizontal; dinoflagellate; Models, Biological; Synteny; Chromosomes; Evolution, Molecular; 03 medical and health sciences; Genome Size; pattern-recognition receptors; Animals; 14. Life underwater; Symbiosis; Phylogeny; Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid; 0303 health sciences; endosymbiosis; Genome; Gene Expression Profiling; Molecular Sequence Annotation; 15. Life on land; Anthozoa; 3. Good health; Sea Anemones; horizontal gene transfer; Microbial Interactions; coral reefs

Significance

Coral reefs form marine-biodiversity hotspots of enormous ecological, economic, and aesthetic importance that rely energetically on a functional symbiosis between the coral animal and a photosynthetic alga. The ongoing decline of corals worldwide due to anthropogenic influences, including global warming, ocean acidification, and pollution, heightens the need for an experimentally tractable model system to elucidate the molecular and cellular biology underlying the symbiosis and its susceptibility or resilience to stress. The small sea anemone Aiptasia is such a system, and our analysis of its genome provides a foundation for research in this area and has revealed numerous features of interest in relation to the evolution and function of the symbiotic relationship.