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Symbiophagy and biomineralization in the "living fossil" Astrosclera willeyana.
- Source :
-
Autophagy [Autophagy] 2014 Mar; Vol. 10 (3), pp. 408-15. Date of Electronic Publication: 2013 Dec 12. - Publication Year :
- 2014
-
Abstract
- Representatives of all major metazoan lineages form biominerals. The molecular mechanisms that underlie this widespread and evolutionarily ancient ability are gradually being revealed for some lineages. However, until a wider range of metazoan biomineralization strategies are understood, the true diversity, and therefore the evolutionary origins of this process, will remain unknown. We have previously shown that the coralline demosponge, Astrosclera willeyana, in some way employs its endobiotic bacterial community to form its highly calcified skeleton. Here, using in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry, we show that an ortholog of ATG8 (most likely a GABARAPL2/GATE-16 ortholog) is expressed in cells that construct the individual skeletal elements of the sponge. In TEM sections sponge cells can be observed to contain extensive populations of bacteria, and frequently possesses double-membrane structures which we interpret to be autophagosomes. In combination with our previous work, these findings support the hypothesis that the host sponge actively degrades a proportion of its bacterial community using an autophagy pathway, and uses the prokaryotic organic remains as a framework upon which calcification of the sponge skeleton is initiated.
- Subjects :
- Animals
Autophagy physiology
Bacterial Physiological Phenomena
Calcification, Physiologic genetics
Immunohistochemistry methods
Porifera cytology
Porifera metabolism
Porifera microbiology
Autophagy genetics
Calcification, Physiologic physiology
Evolution, Molecular
Microtubule-Associated Proteins metabolism
Porifera genetics
Symbiosis genetics
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 1554-8635
- Volume :
- 10
- Issue :
- 3
- Database :
- MEDLINE
- Journal :
- Autophagy
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 24343243
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.4161/auto.27319