Biol Bull. 2022 Feb;242(1):40-47. doi: 10.1086/717926. Epub 2022 Feb 9.
AbstractCoral growth is critical to reef health, resilience under rapidly changing environmental conditions, and restoration efforts. Although fragmenting coral has been occurring for many years in an effort to restore reefs, recently it was discovered that microfragmenting, the process of cutting one piece of coral into many small pieces (about three to five polyps), induces exponential growth. Our study investigates the process by which microfragments of nine different genotypes from the stony coral species grow and exhibit Cyclin-E expression. Microfragments were examined by using a high-powered dissecting microscope with a camera to document the precise areas of tissue exhibiting exponential growth. We found that new polyp formation occurs only on the microfragment edges and that edge polyp growth rates varied between different genotypes. We then extracted tissue from both the edge and the center of five genotypes for genetic analysis. We chose to analyze Cyclin-E expression because it is involved with stimulating mitotic division and is a conserved signaling pathway that is known to exist in , mammals, and Cnidaria. Two primers for Cyclin-E were utilized to examine the level of expression for center and edge tissue. We found that Cyclin-E is expressed differentially between polyps, with a tendency for increased expression of the Cyclin-E in edge center tissue in each of five genotypes, although this result was not significant. Despite consistently higher levels of Cyclin-E expression within an organism's edge tissue, genotypes varied significantly in the degree of increased expression. This variation positively correlated with growth rate, suggesting the potential for molecular selection in aid of more rapid reef restoration. Future work will focus on deciphering the specific growth pathways involved in microfragmented coral growth and analyzing expression patterns in injured tissues.
摘要珊瑚的生长对珊瑚礁的健康、在快速变化的环境条件下的恢复力和恢复工作至关重要。尽管多年来为了恢复珊瑚礁而进行了珊瑚碎片移植，但最近发现，微碎片化（将一块珊瑚切成许多小块（约 3 到 5 个息肉）的过程）会引起指数级生长。我们的研究调查了来自硬珊瑚物种的 9 种不同基因型的微碎片生长和表现出细胞周期蛋白 E 表达的过程。使用带有摄像头的高倍解剖显微镜检查微碎片，以记录表现出指数级生长的组织的确切区域。我们发现新的息肉形成仅发生在微碎片的边缘，并且边缘息肉的生长速度在不同基因型之间有所不同。然后，我们从五个基因型的边缘和中心提取组织进行遗传分析。我们选择分析细胞周期蛋白 E 的表达，因为它涉及刺激有丝分裂分裂，并且是一种保守的信号通路，已知存在于 、哺乳动物和刺胞动物中。使用两个细胞周期蛋白 E 的引物来检查中心和边缘组织的表达水平。我们发现细胞周期蛋白 E 在 息肉之间的表达存在差异，尽管这一结果并不显著，但在五个基因型的每个边缘 中心组织中，细胞周期蛋白 E 的表达有增加的趋势。尽管在生物体的边缘组织中细胞周期蛋白 E 的表达水平始终较高，但基因型在表达增加的程度上存在显著差异。这种差异与生长速率呈正相关，这表明在快速珊瑚礁恢复方面，分子选择具有潜力。未来的工作将集中于解码涉及微碎片珊瑚生长的特定生长途径，并分析受损组织中的表达模式。
