Introducing the starlet sea anemone Nematostella vectensis as a model for investigating microbial mediation of health and disease in hexacorals

All animals in their natural state harbor complex communities of microbes including those that are beneficial (symbionts), neutral, or harmful (pathogens). The dynamic interactions between animals and their microbiota often dictate the balance between health and disease. Environmental perturbations may disrupt this delicate balance and allow proliferation of pathogens. A global example of this is the case of reef-building corals (class Anthozoa, subclass Hexacorallia) where rising seawater temperatures and coastal eutrophication have been correlated to increased prevalence of microbial diseases and coral bleaching. Despite such correlations, factors that govern whether animal-associated microbes support health or cause disease are largely unknown. Here I employ an emerging Cnidarian model, the starlet sea anemone Nematostella vectensis, to investigate whether hexacorals maintain communities of beneficial microbes. I hypothesize that loss of this beneficial community by environmental perturbations will negatively impact the physiology of the host. As a first step to testing my hypothesis I have characterized the microbial communities associated with apparently healthy N. vectensis under natural and laboratory conditions using 16S rRNA gene clone libraries, terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis (T- RFLP), fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) and cultivation-based analysis. N. vectensis microbiomes revealed the presence of a novel lineage of epsilon-Proteobacteria associated with animals collected from salt marshes in Sippewissett (Massachusetts), Clinton (Connecticut) and Mahone Bay (Nova Scotia).

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Har, Jia Yi

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Janelle R. Thompson.

• Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/51615

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/51615