Metatranscriptomics reveal differences in in situ energy and nitrogen metabolism among hydrothermal vent snail symbionts.

ABSTRACT: Despite the ubiquity of chemoautotrophic symbioses at hydrothermal vents, our understanding of the influence of environmental chemistry on symbiont metabolism is limited. Transcriptomic analyses are useful for linking physiological poise to environmental conditions, but recovering samples from the deep sea is challenging, as the long recovery times can change expression profiles before preservation. Here, we present a novel, in situ RNA sampling and preservation device, which we used to compare the symbiont metatranscriptomes associated with Alviniconcha, a genus of vent snail, in which specific host-symbiont combinations are predictably distributed across a regional geochemical gradient. Metatranscriptomes of these symbionts reveal key differences in energy and nitrogen metabolism relatin

SUBMITTER: Sanders JG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3721115 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature