A ubiquitous subcuticular bacterial symbiont of a coral predator, the crown-of-thorns starfish, in the Indo-Pacific
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RESEARCH
Open Access
A ubiquitous subcuticular bacterial symbiont of a coral predator, the crown-ofthorns starfish, in the Indo-Pacific Naohisa Wada1,2†, Hideaki Yuasa3†, Rei Kajitani3, Yasuhiro Gotoh4, Yoshitoshi Ogura4, Dai Yoshimura3, Atsushi Toyoda5, Sen-Lin Tang2, Yukihiro Higashimura1, Hugh Sweatman6, Zac Forsman7, Omri Bronstein8,9, Gal Eyal10,11, Nalinee Thongtham12, Takehiko Itoh3*, Tetsuya Hayashi4* and Nina Yasuda1*
Abstract Background: Population outbreaks of the crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci sensu lato; COTS), a primary predator of reef-building corals in the Indo-Pacific Ocean, are a major threat to coral reefs. While biological and ecological knowledge of COTS has been accumulating since the 1960s, little is known about its associated bacteria. The aim of this study was to provide fundamental information on the dominant COTS-associated bacteria through a multifaceted molecular approach. Methods: A total of 205 COTS individuals from 17 locations throughout the Indo-Pacific Ocean were examined for the presence of COTS-associated bacteria. We conducted 16S rRNA metabarcoding of COTS to determine the bacterial profiles of different parts of the body and generated a full-length 16S rRNA gene sequence from a single dominant bacterium, which we designated COTS27. We performed phylogenetic analysis to determine the taxonomy, screening of COTS27 across the Indo-Pacific, FISH to visualize it within the COTS tissues, and reconstruction of the bacterial genome from the hologenome sequence data. Results: We discovered that a single bacterium exists at high densities in the subcuticular space in COTS forming a biofilm-like structure between the cuticle and the epidermis. COTS27 belongs to a clade that presumably represents a distinct order (so-called marine spirochetes) in the phylum Spirochaetes and is universally present in COTS throughout the Indo-Pacific Ocean. The reconstructed genome of COTS27 includes some genetic traits that are probably linked to adaptation to marine environments and evolution as an extracellular endosymbiont in subcuticular spaces. (Continued on next page)
* Correspondence: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] † Naohisa Wada and Hideki Yuasa are co-first authors. 3 School of Life Science and Technology, Department of Life Science and Technology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1 Ookayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 152-8550, Japan 4 Department of Bacteriology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, 3-1-1 Maidashi Higashi-ku, Fukuoka 812-8582, Japan 1 Faculty of Agriculture, University of Miyazaki, 1-1 Gakuenkibanadai-Nishi, Miyazaki, Miyazaki 889-2192, Japan Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the sour
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