Carbohydrate composition of mucus from scleractinian corals from the central Red Sea
Type
ArticleKAUST Department
Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (BESE) DivisionBioscience Program
Marine Science Program
Red Sea Research Center (RSRC)
KAUST Grant Number
FCC/1/1973-22-01Date
2018-12-31Online Publication Date
2018-12-31Print Publication Date
2019-02Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/630785
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Show full item recordAbstract
Coral mucus is continuously released by most corals and acts as an important protective barrier and as a substrate for host-associated microbial communities due to its complex composition of carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins. On a reef scale, coral mucus functions as a particle trap, thereby retaining nutrients and energy in the ecosystem. Given the distinct environmental conditions in the Red Sea (high temperature, high salinity, high total alkalinity), we sought to investigate the carbohydrate composition of mucus from five corals from the central Red Sea. Our aim was to assess whether mucus from Red Sea corals is different from what is known from other corals and whether those differences could be aligned to putative beneficial functions with regard to the prevailing environment. Using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, we detected nine sugars as the main prevalent carbohydrates. Although we detected significant differences between species with regard to the relative abundance of given carbohydrates, the identified sugars resembled those found in mucus from corals elsewhere, and we could corroborate high abundance of arabinose in acroporid corals. Taken together, our results suggest the presence of a common set of carbohydrates across a broad range of coral species from geographically diverse environments, highlighting the important role of mucus with regard to coral and reef ecosystem function.Citation
Hadaidi G, Gegner HM, Ziegler M, Voolstra CR (2018) Carbohydrate composition of mucus from scleractinian corals from the central Red Sea. Coral Reefs. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00338-018-01758-5.Sponsors
This study was funded by the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) under FCC/1/1973-22-01. This work was supported by the Chemical Sciences, Geosciences and Biosciences Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, U.S. Department of Energy grant (DE-SC0015662) to Parastoo Azadi at the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center. We would further like to thank the editor and two anonymous reviewers whose comments contributed greatly to the quality of the manuscript.Publisher
Springer NatureJournal
Coral ReefsAdditional Links
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00338-018-01758-5ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1007/s00338-018-01758-5
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