spacer gif spacer gif spacer gif spacer gif spacer gif
QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced]


spacer gif
     Home     Help     Feedback     Subscriptions     Archive     Search     Table of Contents    

First published online August 14, 2009
Journal of Experimental Biology 212, 2760-2766 (2009)
Published by The Company of Biologists 2009
doi: 10.1242/jeb.031286
This Article
Right arrow Figures Only
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Reef, R.
Right arrow Articles by Hoegh-Guldberg, O.
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Reef, R.
Right arrow Articles by Hoegh-Guldberg, O.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Photoreactivation is the main repair pathway for UV-induced DNA damage in coral planulae

Ruth Reef1,*, Simon Dunn1, Oren Levy1,2, Sophie Dove1, Eli Shemesh2, Itzchak Brickner3, William Leggat1,4 and Ove Hoegh-Guldberg1

1 Centre for Marine Studies and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072 Australia
2 The Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences, Bar Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel
3 Department of Zoology, George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
4 Comparative Genomics Centre, School of Pharmacy and Molecular Sciences and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD 4811, Australia

* Author for correspondence (r.reef{at}uq.edu.au)

Accepted 3 June 2009

The larvae of most coral species spend some time in the plankton, floating just below the surface and hence exposed to high levels of ultraviolet radiation (UVR). The high levels of UVR are potentially stressful and damaging to DNA and other cellular components, such as proteins, reducing survivorship. Consequently, mechanisms to either shade (prevent) or repair damage potentially play an important role. In this study, the role of photoreactivation in the survival of coral planulae was examined. Photoreactivation is a light-stimulated response to UV-damaged DNA in which photolyase proteins repair damaged DNA. Photoreactivation rates, as well as the localization of photolyase, were explored in planulae under conditions where photoreactivation was or was not inhibited. The results indicate that photoreactivation is the main DNA repair pathway in coral planulae, repairing UV-induced DNA damage swiftly (K=1.75 h–1 and a half-life of repair of 23 min), with no evidence of any light-independent DNA repair mechanisms, such as nucleotide excision repair (NER), at work. Photolyase mRNA was localized to both the ectoderm and endoderm of the larvae. The amount of cell death in the coral planulae increased significantly when photoreactivation was inhibited, by blocking photoreactivating light. We found that photoreactivation, along with additional UV shielding in the form of five mycosporine-like amino acids, are sufficient for survival in surface tropical waters and that planulae do not accumulate DNA damage despite being exposed to high UVR.

Key words: photolyase, Acropora millepora, CPD, MAAs, Phr


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?




© The Company of Biologists Ltd 2009