Todgham Anne E, Hofmann Gretchen E
Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
J Exp Biol. 2009 Aug;212(Pt 16):2579-94. doi: 10.1242/jeb.032540.
Ocean acidification from the uptake of anthropogenic CO(2) is expected to have deleterious consequences for many calcifying marine animals. Forecasting the vulnerability of these marine organisms to climate change is linked to an understanding of whether species possess the physiological capacity to compensate for the potentially adverse effects of ocean acidification. We carried out a microarray-based transcriptomic analysis of the physiological response of larvae of a calcifying marine invertebrate, the purple sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus, to CO(2)-driven seawater acidification. In lab-based cultures, larvae were raised under conditions approximating current ocean pH conditions (pH 8.01) and at projected, more acidic pH conditions (pH 7.96 and 7.88) in seawater aerated with CO(2) gas. Targeting expression of approximately 1000 genes involved in several biological processes, this study captured changes in gene expression patterns that characterize the transcriptomic response to CO(2)-driven seawater acidification of developing sea urchin larvae. In response to both elevated CO(2) scenarios, larvae underwent broad scale decreases in gene expression in four major cellular processes: biomineralization, cellular stress response, metabolism and apoptosis. This study underscores that physiological processes beyond calcification are impacted greatly, suggesting that overall physiological capacity and not just a singular focus on biomineralization processes is essential for forecasting the impact of future CO(2) conditions on marine organisms. Conducted on targeted and vulnerable species, genomics-based studies, such as the one highlighted here, have the potential to identify potential ;weak links' in physiological function that may ultimately determine an organism's capacity to tolerate future ocean conditions.
人为排放的二氧化碳导致海洋酸化，预计将对许多钙化海洋动物产生有害影响。预测这些海洋生物对气候变化的脆弱性，与了解物种是否具备生理能力来补偿海洋酸化的潜在不利影响有关。我们对一种钙化海洋无脊椎动物——紫海胆（Strongylocentrotus purpuratus）幼虫对二氧化碳驱动的海水酸化的生理反应进行了基于微阵列的转录组分析。在实验室培养中，幼虫分别在接近当前海洋pH值条件（pH 8.01）以及预计的、酸性更强的pH值条件（pH 7.96和7.88）下饲养，海水用二氧化碳气体曝气。针对参与多个生物学过程的约1000个基因的表达进行研究，本研究捕捉到了基因表达模式的变化，这些变化表征了发育中的海胆幼虫对二氧化碳驱动的海水酸化的转录组反应。针对两种二氧化碳浓度升高的情况，幼虫在四个主要细胞过程中的基因表达都出现了大规模下降：生物矿化、细胞应激反应、新陈代谢和细胞凋亡。这项研究强调，除钙化之外的生理过程也受到了极大影响，这表明预测未来二氧化碳条件对海洋生物的影响时，整体生理能力而非仅单一关注生物矿化过程至关重要。针对目标脆弱物种开展的基于基因组学的研究，比如此处重点介绍的这项研究，有潜力识别出生理功能中可能最终决定生物体耐受未来海洋条件能力的潜在“薄弱环节”。
