Meeting Abstract
Onset and establishment of cnidarian-dinoflagellate symbiosis is mediated by the host innate immune system through interpartner signaling between host receptors and symbiont surface proteins. For example, in Aiptasia (Exaiptasia pallida), a sea anemone that is widely used as a model for cnidarian-dinoflagellate symbiosis, it is known that symbiont glycan and host lectin binding is crucial for symbiont specificity. Additionally, evidence has shown that the scavenger receptor (SR) and TSR-domain protein signaling pathways mediate symbiont re-colonization in aposymbiotic Aiptasia. In these studies, inhibition of the SR and TSR domains caused a reduction in symbiont colonization success. However, the Aiptasia genome encodes many SR and TSR-domain genes, thus it is unclear which specific genes are directly involved in mediating symbiosis. In general, the causal genetic mechanisms underlying onset and establishment of symbiosis in Aiptasia are still largely unknown, mostly due to the lack of tools and techniques for assessing gene function in the context of symbiosis. Here we discuss our efforts in developing molecular genetic tools (e.g., CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing) to investigate the role of candidate SR and TSR-domain genes in mediating the onset and establishment of symbiosis in Aiptasia.
