School of Marine and Tropical Biology, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, Australia.
Proc Biol Sci. 2012 Oct 22;279(1745):4106-14. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2012.1477. Epub 2012 Aug 15.
Reef-building corals form bio-diverse marine ecosystems of high societal and economic value, but are in significant decline globally due, in part, to rapid climatic changes. As immunity is a predictor of coral disease and thermal stress susceptibility, a comprehensive understanding of this new field will likely provide a mechanistic explanation for ecological-scale trends in reef declines. Recently, several strides within coral immunology document defence mechanisms that are consistent with those of both invertebrates and vertebrates, and which span the recognition, signalling and effector response phases of innate immunity. However, many of these studies remain discrete and unincorporated into the wider fields of invertebrate immunology or coral biology. To encourage the rapid development of coral immunology, we comprehensively synthesize the current understanding of the field in the context of general invertebrate immunology, and highlight fundamental gaps in our knowledge. We propose a framework for future research that we hope will stimulate directional studies in this emerging field and lead to the elucidation of an integrated network of coral immune mechanisms. Once established, we are optimistic that coral immunology can be effectively applied to pertinent ecological questions, improve current prediction tools and aid conservation efforts.
造礁珊瑚形成了具有高度社会和经济价值的生物多样性海洋生态系统，但由于快速的气候变化，它们在全球范围内正大量减少。由于免疫力是珊瑚疾病和耐热性的预测指标，因此，对这一新领域的全面了解可能为珊瑚衰退的生态规模趋势提供一种机制解释。最近，珊瑚免疫学的几项进展记录了与无脊椎动物和脊椎动物一致的防御机制，涵盖了先天免疫的识别、信号和效应器反应阶段。然而，这些研究中的许多仍然是离散的，没有纳入无脊椎动物免疫学或珊瑚生物学的更广泛领域。为了鼓励珊瑚免疫学的快速发展，我们在无脊椎动物免疫学的背景下全面综合了该领域的现有认识，并强调了我们知识中的基本差距。我们提出了一个未来研究的框架，希望这将激发这个新兴领域的定向研究，并阐明珊瑚免疫机制的综合网络。一旦建立起来，我们乐观地认为，珊瑚免疫学可以有效地应用于相关的生态问题，改进当前的预测工具，并有助于保护工作。
