ArticleMolecular biology and evolution2013
Genome analysis of Elysia chlorotica Egg DNA provides no evidence for horizontal gene transfer into the germ line of this Kleptoplastic Mollusc.
Article in Molecular biology and evolution, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 39 papers.
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Who cites it
39 citing papers in PubMed, 88 citations in OpenAlex.
- Draft hybrid genome assembly of the photosynthetic sacoglossan Elysia crispata provides insights into sacoglossan biology.BMC genomics · 2026Article
- How to upgrade stolen organelles into permanent plastids: A comparative transcriptomic perspective.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Loss of state transitions in Bryopsidales macroalgae and kleptoplastic sea slugs (Gastropoda, Sacoglossa).Communications biology · 2025Article
- A reference genome for the long-term kleptoplast-retaining sea slug Elysia crispata morphotype clarki.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2023Article
- Prey preference in a kleptoplastic dinoflagellate is linked to photosynthetic performance.The ISME journal · 2023Article
- Kleptoplasty: Getting away with stolen chloroplasts.PLoS biology · 2022Article
- Horizontal Gene Transfers in Plants.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
- Article
- Adaptive significance of light and food for a kleptoplastic sea slug: implications for photosynthesis.Oecologia · 2020Article
- Genomic Insights into Plastid Evolution.Genome biology and evolution · 2020Review
- Co-evolution in the Jungle: From Leafcutter Ant Colonies to Chromosomal Ends.Journal of molecular evolution · 2020Review
- Seasonality and Longevity of the Functional Chloroplasts Retained by the Sacoglossan Sea SlugZoological studies · 2020Article
- A kleptoplastidic dinoflagellate and the tipping point between transient and fully integrated plastid endosymbiosis.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2019Article
- A new case of kleptoplasty in animals: Marine flatworms steal functional plastids from diatoms.Science advances · 2019Article
- A draft genome assembly of the solar-powered sea slug Elysia chlorotica.Scientific data · 2019Article
- Ecology and evolution of facilitation among symbionts.Nature communications · 2018Review
- Horizontal Transfer of Non-LTR Retrotransposons from Arthropods to Flowering Plants.Molecular biology and evolution · 2018Article
- Horizontally transferred genes in the ctenophorePeerJ · 2018Article
- Mitochondrial Genome Assemblies of Elysia timida and Elysia cornigera and the Response of Mitochondrion-Associated Metabolism during Starvation.Genome biology and evolution · 2017Article
- On Being the Right Size as an Animal with Plastids.Frontiers in plant science · 2017Review
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The sea slug Elysia chlorotica offers a unique opportunity to study the evolution of a novel function (photosynthesis) in a complex multicellular host. Elysia chlorotica harvests plastids (absent of nuclei) from its heterokont algal prey, Vaucheria litorea. The "stolen" plastids are maintained for several months in cells of the digestive tract and are essential for animal development. The basis of long-term maintenance of photosynthesis in this sea slug was thought to be explained by extensive horizontal gene transfer (HGT) from the nucleus of the alga to the animal nucleus, followed by expression of algal genes in the gut to provide essential plastid-destined proteins. Early studies of target genes and proteins supported the HGT hypothesis, but more recent genome-wide data provide conflicting results. Here, we generated significant genome data from the E. chlorotica germ line (egg DNA) and from V. litorea to test the HGT hypothesis. Our comprehensive analyses fail to provide evidence for alga-derived HGT into the germ line of the sea slug. Polymerase chain reaction analyses of genomic DNA and cDNA from different individual E. chlorotica suggest, however, that algal nuclear genes (or gene fragments) are present in the adult slug. We suggest that these nucleic acids may derive from and/or reside in extrachromosomal DNAs that are made available to the animal through contact with the alga. These data resolve a long-standing issue and suggest that HGT is not the primary reason underlying long-term maintenance of photosynthesis in E. chlorotica. Therefore, sea slug photosynthesis is sustained in as yet unexplained ways that do not appear to endanger the animal germ line through the introduction of dozens of foreign genes.
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