Affiliation:
1. Centre for Organismal Studies (COS), Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
2. Heidelberg University Biochemistry Center (BZH), Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
Abstract
Reef-building corals depend on intracellular dinoflagellate symbionts that provide nutrients. Besides sugars, the transfer of sterols is essential for corals and other sterol-auxotrophic cnidarians. Sterols are important cell components, and variants of the conserved Niemann-Pick Type C2 (NPC2) sterol transporter are vastly up-regulated in symbiotic cnidarians. Types and proportions of transferred sterols and the mechanism of their transfer, however, remain unknown. Using different pairings of symbiont strains with lines of Aiptasia anemones or Acropora corals, we observe both symbiont- and host-driven patterns of sterol transfer, revealing plasticity of sterol use and functional substitution. We propose that sterol transfer is mediated by the symbiosis-specific, non-canonical NPC2 proteins, which gradually accumulate in the symbiosome. Our data suggest that non-canonical NPCs are adapted to the symbiosome environment, including low pH, and play an important role in allowing corals to dominate nutrient-poor shallow tropical seas worldwide.
Funder
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
European Commission
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme
Boehringer Ingelheim Stiftung
European Molecular Biology Organization
Universität Heidelberg
Publisher
eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
Subject
General Immunology and Microbiology,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,General Medicine,General Neuroscience
Cited by
38 articles.
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