ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2013
How to get into bones: proton pump and carbonic anhydrase in Osedax boneworms.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 59 citations in OpenAlex.
- Co-option of Lysosomal Machinery for Sponge Biosilicification.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Predetermined sex revealed by a female transient gut in non-feeding larvae of Osedax (Siboglinidae, Annelida).EvoDevo · 2025Article
- Co-option of immune and digestive cellular machinery to support photosymbiosis in amoebocytes of the upside-down jellyfish Cassiopea xamachana.The Journal of experimental biology · 2025Article
- An acidic microenvironment produced by the V-type ATPase of Euprymna scolopes promotes specificity during Vibrio fischeri recruitment.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Description of a newZooKeys · 2024Article
- Article
- Deep-Sea-Inspired Chemistry: A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Bottom of the Ocean for Chemists.Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids · 2023Review
- Distinct genomic routes underlie transitions to specialised symbiotic lifestyles in deep-sea annelid worms.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Range extensions of Pacific bone-eating worms (Annelida, Siboglinidae, Osedax).Biodiversity data journal · 2023Article
- V-type HRoyal Society open science · 2022Article
- Article
- The bone-degrading enzyme machinery: From multi-component understanding to the treatment of residues from the meat industry.Computational and structural biotechnology journal · 2021Article
- New species of bone-eating wormZooKeys · 2019Article
- Genetic mechanisms of bone digestion and nutrient absorption in the bone-eating worm Osedax japonicus inferred from transcriptome and gene expression analyses.BMC evolutionary biology · 2017Article
- Soluble adenylyl cyclase is an acid-base sensor in epithelial base-secreting cells.American journal of physiology. Cell physiology · 2016Article
- Coral host cells acidify symbiotic algal microenvironment to promote photosynthesis.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2015Article
- Article
- Genomic versatility and functional variation between two dominant heterotrophic symbionts of deep-sea Osedax worms.The ISME journal · 2014Article
- Novel psychropiezophilic Oceanospirillales species Profundimonas piezophila gen. nov., sp. nov., isolated from the deep-sea environment of the Puerto Rico trench.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2014Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Osedax are gutless siboglinid worms that thrive on vertebrate bones lying on the ocean floor, mainly those of whales. The posterior body of female Osedax penetrates into the bone forming extensions known as 'roots', which host heterotrophic symbiotic bacteria in bacteriocytes beneath the epidermis. The Osedax root epithelium presumably absorbs bone collagen and/or lipids, which are metabolized by the symbiotic bacteria that in turn serve for Osedax's nutrition. Here, we show that Osedax roots express extremely high amounts of vacuolar-H(+)-ATPase (VHA), which is located in the apical membrane and in cytoplasmic vesicles of root and ovisac epithelial cells. The enzyme carbonic anhydrase (CA), which catalyses the hydration of CO2 into H(+) and HCO3(-), is also expressed in roots and throughout Osedax body. These results suggest Osedax roots have massive acid-secreting capacity via VHA, fuelled by H(+) derived from the CA-catalysed hydration of CO2 produced by aerobic metabolism. We propose the secreted acid dissolves the bone carbonate matrix to then allow the absorption of bone-derived nutrients across the skin. In an exciting example of convergent evolution, this model for acid secretion is remarkably similar to mammalian osteoclast cells. However, while osteoclasts dissolve bone for repairing and remodelling, the Osedax root epithelium secretes acid to dissolve foreign bone to access nutrients.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.