Searching the Resource Information Network

Our searching services are busy right now. Please try again later

  • Register
X
Forgot Password

If you have forgotten your password you can enter your email here and get a temporary password sent to your email.

X

Leaving Community

Are you sure you want to leave this community? Leaving the community will revoke any permissions you have been granted in this community.

No
Yes

Sea cucumbers and their symbiotic microbiome have evolved to feed on seabed sediments.

Wenjie Pan | Xuan Wang | Chunhua Ren | Xiao Jiang | Sanqiang Gong | Zhenyu Xie | Nai-Kei Wong | Xiaomin Li | Jiasheng Huang | Dingding Fan | Peng Luo | Yun Yang | Xinyue Ren | Suzhong Yu | Zhou Qin | Xiaofen Wu | Da Huo | Bo Ma | Yang Liu | Xin Zhang | Zixuan E | Jingxuan Liang | Hongyan Sun | Lihong Yuan | Xujia Liu | Chuhang Cheng | Hao Long | Jianlong Li | Yanhong Wang | Chaoqun Hu | Ting Chen
Nature communications | 2024

Sea cucumbers are predominant deposit feeders in benthic ecosystems, providing protective benefits to coral reefs by reducing disease prevalence. However, how they receive sufficient nutrition from seabed sediments remains poorly understood. Here, we investigate Holothuria leucospilota, an ecologically significant tropical sea cucumber, to elucidate digestive mechanisms underlying marine deposit-feeding. Genomic analysis reveals intriguing evolutionary adaptation characterized by an expansion of digestive carbohydrase genes and a contraction of digestive protease genes, suggesting specialization in digesting microalgae. Developmentally, two pivotal dietary shifts, namely, from endogenous nutrition to planktonic feeding, and from planktonic feeding to deposit feeding, induce changes in digestive tract enzyme profiles, with adults mainly expressing carbohydrases and lipases. A nuanced symbiotic relationship exists between gut microbiota and the host, namely, specific resident bacteria supply crucial enzymes for food digestion, while other bacteria are digested and provide assimilable nutrients. Our study further identifies Holothuroidea lineage-specific lysozymes that are restrictedly expressed in the intestines to support bacterial digestion. Overall, this work advances our knowledge of the evolutionary innovations in the sea cucumber digestive system which enable them to efficiently utilize nutrients from seabed sediments and promote food recycling within marine ecosystems.

Pubmed ID: 39394205

Research resources used in this publication

None found

Antibodies used in this publication

None found

Associated grants

  • Agency: National Natural Science Foundation of China (National Science Foundation of China),
    Id: 42176132
  • Agency: National Natural Science Foundation of China (National Science Foundation of China),
    Id: 41906101
  • Agency: Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China (Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology),
    Id: 2022YFD2401301
  • Agency: Guangdong Science and Technology Department (Science and Technology Department, Guangdong Province),
    Id: 2024A1515010899
  • Agency: Guangdong Science and Technology Department (Science and Technology Department, Guangdong Province),
    Id: 2024A1515011418
  • Agency: Shanghai Educational Development Foundation,
    Id: HJWK-2021-21
  • Agency: Administration of Ocean and Fisheries of Guangdong Province,
    Id: 2024-MRB-00-001

Publication data is provided by the National Library of Medicine ® and PubMed ®. Data is retrieved from PubMed ® on a weekly schedule. For terms and conditions see the National Library of Medicine Terms and Conditions.

This is a list of tools and resources that we have found mentioned in this publication.


Greengenes (tool)

RRID:SCR_002830

Database that provides access to the current and comprehensive 16S rRNA gene sequence alignment for browsing, blasting, probing, and downloading. The data and tools can assist the researcher in choosing phylogenetically specific probes, interpreting microarray results, and aligning/annotating novel sequences. The 16S rRNA gene database provides chimera screening, standard alignment, and taxonomic classification using multiple published taxonomies. ARB users can use Greengenes to update local databases.

View all literature mentions

SOAPnuke (tool)

RRID:SCR_015025

Multi-threaded software for rapid quality control and preprocessing of high throughput sequencing data specified for different experiments. It consists of four modules that speed up the report on statistics graphs of raw datasets, preprocessed datasets and preprocessing status.

View all literature mentions

HISAT2 (tool)

RRID:SCR_015530

Graph-based alignment of next generation sequencing reads to a population of genomes.

View all literature mentions

DESeq2 (tool)

RRID:SCR_015687

Software package for differential gene expression analysis based on the negative binomial distribution. Used for analyzing RNA-seq data for differential analysis of count data, using shrinkage estimation for dispersions and fold changes to improve stability and interpretability of estimates.

View all literature mentions

StringTie (tool)

RRID:SCR_016323

Software application for assembling of RNA-Seq alignments into potential transcripts. It enables improved reconstruction of a transcriptome from RNA-seq reads. This transcript assembling and quantification program is implemented in C++ .

View all literature mentions

Glycosylation Pathways Database (tool)

RRID:SCR_013486

A pathway-based graphical interface for navigating the glycoenzyme database. The goal of the project is to define the paradigms by which carbohydrate binding proteins function in cellular communication. These pages are divided into six categories: -Glycosphingolipid: Sub-categories are Isogloboseries, Globoseries, Neo-lactoseries, Lactoseries and Ganglioseries - N-linked: Sub-categories are High-mannose, Hybrid and Complex -Mucin -Terminal Core 1 -Other O-linked -Terminal All: Includes all potential terminal structures for each glycan category

View all literature mentions