Deep-sequencing method for quantifying background abundances of symbiodinium types: exploring the rare symbiodinium biosphere in reef-building corals.

ABSTRACT: The capacity of reef-building corals to associate with environmentally-appropriate types of endosymbionts from the dinoflagellate genus Symbiodinium contributes significantly to their success at local scales. Additionally, some corals are able to acclimatize to environmental perturbations by shuffling the relative proportions of different Symbiodinium types hosted. Understanding the dynamics of these symbioses requires a sensitive and quantitative method of Symbiodinium genotyping. Electrophoresis methods, still widely utilized for this purpose, are predominantly qualitative and cannot guarantee detection of a background type below 10% of the total Symbiodinium population. Here, the relative abundances of four Symbiodinium types (A13, C1, C3, and D1) in mixed samples of known composition w

SUBMITTER: Quigley KM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3984134 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature