![]() ![]() "Our findings underscore the importance of the microbiome for the nutrition and development of animals in general and point to a deep evolutionary history shared by animals and their bacterial partners," Vargas says. Get ready for The Greatest Show On Earth The reimagined Ringling Bros. The researchers suspect that shaded sponges modify their metabolism to make up for the fact that they receive fewer carbon compounds from their symbionts. "This suggests that sponges can perceive changes in their microbiome and actively respond to them via development processes." "We observed changes in gene activities that are involved in both immune response and development," Vargas notes. The sponges respond to the loss of cyanobacteria-due to shading, for example-with significant changes to their morphology: In the present study, initially blue sponges with foliose (leaf-like) growth forms transformed into white, thread-like morphotypes with a markedly different microanatomy.Īpplying transcriptomic methods enabled the scientists to prove for the first time that these changes are accompanied by extensive modifications to gene regulation. These technologies could trap carbon as it is produced from fossil fuel plants. It obtains food by filtering microorganisms out of the water but is also supplied with carbon compounds by its symbionts. Over the past 250 years, human activities have warmed the planets. Lendenfeldia chondrodes is a sponge species with a microbiome dominated by photosynthetic cyanobacteria. "However, there has not yet been sufficient research into the underlying molecular mechanisms." Focusing on the Lendenfeldia chondrodes sponge, which is frequently kept in aquariums, the researchers have now investigated whether and how changes in the composition of the microbiome influence the sponge's gene activity.ĭefective microbiome triggers changes in the sponge "This suggests that the sponges' ability to interact with the microbiome was an evolutionary early development," Vargas says. Sponges possess proteins involved in regulating interactions between sponge and microbiome, and those appear to be responsible for the sponges' ability to modify their morphology in response to changes in the microbiome. Sponges are organisms with a very simple structure that, in the course of evolution, split off from the rest of the animal kingdom more than 600 million years ago. The researchers see their findings as an indication of deep evolutionary origins for phylogenetic interaction between microbiome and host. A new study, published in Molecular Biology and Evolution and led by Assistant Professor Sergio Vargas and Professor Gert Wörheide from the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and the GeoBio-Center of the LMU, have now discovered molecular mechanisms in the model organism Lendenfeldia chondrodes through which the sponges respond actively to changes in their microbiome. Hours of Operation: Monday - Friday: 7:00am - 5:00pm Saturday: 7:00am - Noon Contact Information: Phone: 93. ![]()
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