ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2011
Apoptosis and the selective survival of host animals following thermal bleaching in zooxanthellate corals.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 53 papers.
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Who cites it
53 citing papers in PubMed, 194 citations in OpenAlex.
- BAK knockdown delays bleaching and alleviates oxidative DNA damage in a reef-building coral.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Genomes of the Caribbean reef-building corals Colpophyllia natans, Dendrogyra cylindrus, and Siderastrea siderea.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2025Article
- Stability of the cnidarian-dinoflagellate symbiosis is primarily determined by symbiont cell-cycle arrest.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Nitrogen source type modulates heat stress response in coral symbiont (Applied and environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- Induction of apoptosis by double-stranded RNA was present in the last common ancestor of cnidarian and bilaterian animals.PLoS pathogens · 2024Article
- Genome-wide analysis to uncover how Pocillopora acuta survives the challenging intertidal environment.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Sequential Unfolding Mechanisms of Monomeric Caspases.Biochemistry · 2023Article
- The Symbiodinium Proteome Response to Thermal and Nutrient Stresses.Plant & cell physiology · 2023Article
- Sequential unfolding mechanisms of monomeric caspases.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- Cellular traits regulate fluorescence-based light-response phenotypes of coral photosymbionts livingFrontiers in physiology · 2023Article
- Evolutionary responses of a reef-building coral to climate change at the end of the last glacial maximum.Molecular biology and evolution · 2022Article
- Larval transcriptomic responses of a stony coral, Acropora tenuis, during initial contact with the native symbiont, Symbiodinium microadriaticum.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Heat stress increases immune cell function in Hexacorallia.Frontiers in immunology · 2022Article
- Metatranscriptomic Analysis of Corals Inoculated With Tolerant and Non-Tolerant Symbiont Exposed to High Temperature and Light Stress.Frontiers in physiology · 2022Article
- Broad scale proteomic analysis of heat-destabilised symbiosis in the hard coral Acropora millepora.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Eighteen Coral Genomes Reveal the Evolutionary Origin of Acropora Strategies to Accommodate Environmental Changes.Molecular biology and evolution · 2021Article
- Caspases from scleractinian coral show unique regulatory features.The Journal of biological chemistry · 2020Article
- Review
- Apoptosis in gonadal somatic cells of scleractinian corals: implications of structural adjustments for gamete production and release.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Assessing the role of historical temperature regime and algal symbionts on the heat tolerance of coral juveniles.Biology open · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
During the past several decades, numerous reports from disparate geographical areas have documented an increased frequency of "bleaching" in reef-forming corals. The phenomenon, triggered by increased sea surface temperatures, occurs when the cnidarian hosts digest and/or expel their intracellular, photosynthetic dinoflagellate symbionts ("zooxanthellae" in the genus Symbiodinium). Although coral bleaching is often followed by the death of the animal hosts, in some cases, the animal survives and can be repopulated with viable zooxanthellae. The physiological factors determining the ability of the coral to survive bleaching events are poorly understood. In this study, we experimentally established that bleaching and death of the host animal involve a caspase-mediated apoptotic cascade induced by reactive oxygen species produced primarily by the algal symbionts. In addition, we demonstrate that, although some corals naturally suppress caspase activity and significantly reduce caspase concentration under high temperatures as a mechanism to prevent colony death from apoptosis, even sensitive corals can be prevented from dying by application of exogenous inhibitors of caspases. Our results indicate that variability in response to thermal stress in corals is determined by a four-element, combinatorial genetic matrix intrinsic to the specific symbiotic association. Based on our experimental data, we present a working model in which the phenotypic expression of this symbiont/host relationship places a selective pressure on the symbiotic association. The model predicts the survival of the host animals in which the caspase-mediated apoptotic cascade is down-regulated.
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