Surfing the vegetal pole in a small population: extracellular vertical transmission of an 'intracellular' deep-sea clam symbiont.

ABSTRACT: Symbiont transmission is a key event for understanding the processes underlying symbiotic associations and their evolution. However, our understanding of the mechanisms of symbiont transmission remains still fragmentary. The deep-sea clam Calyptogena okutanii harbours obligate sulfur-oxidizing intracellular symbiotic bacteria in the gill epithelial cells. In this study, we determined the localization of their symbiont associating with the spawned eggs, and the population size of the symbiont transmitted via the eggs. We show that the symbionts are located on the outer surface of the egg plasma membrane at the vegetal pole, and that each egg carries approximately 400 symbiont cells, each of which contains close to 10 genomic copies. The very small population size of the symbiont transmitted

SUBMITTER: Ikuta T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4892456 | biostudies-literature | 2016 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature