Molecular processes of transgenerational acclimation to a warming ocean
Type
ArticleAuthors
Veilleux, Heather D.Ryu, Tae Woo
Donelson, Jennifer M.
van Herwerden, Lynne
Seridi, Loqmane

Ghosheh, Yanal

Berumen, Michael L.

Leggat, William
Ravasi, Timothy

Munday, Philip L.

KAUST Department
Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (BESE) DivisionComputer, Electrical and Mathematical Sciences and Engineering (CEMSE) Division
Computer Science Program
Marine Science Program
Red Sea Research Center (RSRC)
Bioscience Program
KAUST Environmental Epigenetics Research Program (KEEP)
Applied Mathematics and Computational Science Program
Date
2015-07-20Online Publication Date
2015-07-20Print Publication Date
2015-12Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/575089
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Some animals have the remarkable capacity to acclimate across generations to projected future climate change1, 2, 3, 4; however, the underlying molecular processes are unknown. We sequenced and assembled de novo transcriptomes of adult tropical reef fish exposed developmentally or transgenerationally to projected future ocean temperatures and correlated the resulting expression profiles with acclimated metabolic traits from the same fish. We identified 69 contigs representing 53 key genes involved in thermal acclimation of aerobic capacity. Metabolic genes were among the most upregulated transgenerationally, suggesting shifts in energy production for maintaining performance at elevated temperatures. Furthermore, immune- and stress-responsive genes were upregulated transgenerationally, indicating a new complement of genes allowing the second generation of fish to better cope with elevated temperatures. Other differentially expressed genes were involved with tissue development and transcriptional regulation. Overall, we found a similar suite of differentially expressed genes among developmental and transgenerational treatments. Heat-shock protein genes were surprisingly unresponsive, indicating that short-term heat-stress responses may not be a good indicator of long-term acclimation capacity. Our results are the first to reveal the molecular processes that may enable marine fishes to adjust to a future warmer environment over multiple generations.Citation
Molecular processes of transgenerational acclimation to a warming ocean 2015 Nature Climate ChangePublisher
Springer NatureJournal
Nature Climate changeAdditional Links
http://www.nature.com/doifinder/10.1038/nclimate2724ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1038/nclimate2724