Meeting Abstract
Understanding the mechanisms and potential for physiological adaptation to various stressors is essential in predicting how cnidarians will respond to environmental threats. The integrated stress response (ISR) plays a central role in regulating physiological adaptation to stress in mammals, nematodes, flies, and yeast; however, its role in cnidarians has not been described and the origins of specific components within the Metazoa are unclear. We seek to characterize the ISR pathway in the cnidarian model, Nematostella vectensis, in order to gain insight into cnidarian physiology and the evolution of this pathway within the metazoan lineage. The core components of this major signaling pathway are conserved in the N. vectensis genome and commercial antibodies can be used to monitor pathway activation. To investigate activation of the ISR, anemones were exposed to environmental stressors or treated with pharmaceuticals, and protein and post-translational modifications significant to activation of this pathway were analyzed by immunoblot. We found that several relevant environmental stressors and pharmaceutical inducers activate the ISR in N. vectensis. This study will characterize a previously unreported stress pathway in cnidarians and provide a foundation for understanding signaling networks regulating stress adaptation in this sentinel marine organism.
