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Thermal tolerance of coral photosymbionts: genetic factors and strategies to pursue genetic enhancement

open access https://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2 CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/au/ free_to_read

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  • Title:
    Thermal tolerance of coral photosymbionts: genetic factors and strategies to pursue genetic enhancement
  • Author: Levin, Rachel
  • Subjects: Coral bleaching ; Dinoflagellate ; Symbiodinium ; Synthetic biology ; transcriptomics ; Zooxanthellae
  • Description: Dinoflagellates of the genus Symbiodinium form essential symbioses with reef building corals, underpinning the entire ecological foundation of coral reefs. Corals rely on photosynthate produced by Symbiodinium for their growth and calcification, which in turn forms the reef framework. Increased sea surface temperature due to climate change triggers the loss of Symbiodinium from corals (coral bleaching), which can result in coral death. Different genetic variants of Symbiodinium exhibit diverse thermal tolerances that influence the thermal bleaching thresholds of their coral host. However, despite decades of research into Symbiodinium biology, determinants of Symbiodinium thermal tolerance are still largely unresolved. Therefore, I aimed to unlock the basis of Symbiodinium thermal tolerance using a comparative physiology-genomics approach, and subsequently using this new knowledge, aimed to develop novel strategies that promote genetic manipulation of Symbiodinium. In this thesis, I discovered that thermal tolerance of type C1 Symbiodinium is driven by up-regulation of genes and functional gene groups responsible for sexual reproduction, scavenging of reactive oxygen species, and protein folding that maintain photosynthetic ability and limit reactive oxygen species production under heat stress. I also uncovered the first entire genome of a Symbiodinium virus along with hundreds of transcripts from viruses that infect Symbiodinium, whose transcriptional regulation under heat stress may contribute to Symbiodinium thermal sensitivity. Next, I successfully removed cell walls from live Symbiodinium to create the first Symbiodinium protoplasts and achieved Symbiodinium protoplast fusion, a key step in creating hybrid Symbiodinium cells with novel genetic combinations for ideal traits. Finally, using these discoveries, I developed a theoretical framework for Symbiodinium genetic engineering that incorporates Symbiodinium genetic elements, viral genetic elements, and Symbiodinium protoplasts, along with original genomic analyses of the potential for CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing in Symbiodinium. Together, the studies presented in this thesis unveil factors that govern, as well as strategies that may genetically enhance, Symbiodinium thermal tolerance.
  • Publisher: UNSW, Sydney
  • Creation Date: 2017
  • Language: English
  • Source: UNSWorks (University of New South Wales)
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