Chloroplast acquisition without the gene transfer in kleptoplastic sea slugs, Plakobranchus ocellatus

• DOI: 10.7554/elife.60176
• Publication Date: 2021-04-27T00:37:56Z
• Authors: Taro Maeda; Shunichi Takahashi; Takao Yoshida; Shigeru Shimamura; Yoshihiro Takaki; Yukiko Nagai; Atsushi Toyoda; Yutaka Suzuki; Asuka Arimoto; Hisaki Ishii; Nori Satoh; Tomoaki Nishiyama; Mitsuyasu Hasebe; Tadashi Maruyama; Jun Minagawa; Junichi Obokata; Shuji Shigenobu
• Keywords: Gene transfer

Some sea slugs sequester chloroplasts from algal food in their intestinal cells and photosynthesize for months. This phenomenon, kleptoplasty, poses a question of how the chloroplast retains its activity without nucleus. There have been debates on horizontal transfer genes to animal To settle arguments, this study reported genome kleptoplastic slug, Plakobranchus ocellatus , found no evidence photosynthetic encoded Nevertheless, it was confirmed that light illumination prolongs life mollusk under starvation. These data presented paradigm complex adaptive trait, as typified by photosynthesis, can be transferred between eukaryotic kingdoms unique organelle transmission nuclear gene transfer. Our phylogenomic analysis showed proteolysis immunity undergo expansion are up-regulated chloroplast-enriched tissue, suggesting these molluskan involved phenotype acquisition