Polyclonal symbiont populations in hydrothermal vent tubeworms and the environment
Name
rspb.2018.1281.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
831.41 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
7a56d87c50d1dd1a1a877b482b5480fb
Author(s)
Polzin, Julia
Arevalo, Philip Alexander
Nussbaumer, Thomas
Polz, Martin F
Bright, Monika
Date Issued
February 2019
Journal
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Publisher
Royal Society
Citation
Polzin, Julia et al. "Polyclonal symbiont populations in hydrothermal vent tubeworms and the environment." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 286, 1896 (February 2019): 20181281. © 2019 The Author(s)
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Horizontally transmitted symbioses usually house multiple and variable symbiont genotypes that are acquired from a much more diverse environmental pool via partner choice mechanisms. However, in the deep-sea hydrothermal vent tubeworm Riftia pachyptila (Vestimentifera, Siboglinidae), it has been suggested that the Candidatus Endoriftia persephone symbiont is monoclonal. Here, we show with high-coverage metagenomics that adult R. pachyptila house a polyclonal symbiont population consisting of one dominant and several low-frequency variants. This dominance of one genotype is confirmed by multilocus gene sequencing of amplified housekeeping genes in a broad range of host individuals where three out of four loci (atpA, uvrD and recA) revealed no genomic differences, while one locus (gyrB) was more diverse in adults than in juveniles. We also analysed a metagenome of free-living Endoriftia and found that the free-living population showed greater sequence variability than the host-associated population. Most juveniles and adults shared a specific dominant genotype, while other genotypes can dominate in few individuals. We suggest that although generally permissive, partner choice is selective enough to restrict uptake of some genotypes present in the environment.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.1281
