Publications by authors named "Madison Emery"
Article Synopsis
- Cnidarians, like jellyfish, often have a mutualistic relationship with photosynthetic dinoflagellates, which helps them gain nutrients but may weaken their immune response.
- Research focused on upside-down jellyfish revealed that symbiotic polyps had lower survival rates when exposed to pathogens compared to those without symbionts.
- Gene studies suggest that the immune responses of symbiotic polyps were more damaging, as they showed higher inflammation and stress levels, indicating a trade-off between nutrition from symbionts and their ability to defend against diseases.
Melanin is an essential product that plays an important role in innate immunity in a variety of organisms across the animal kingdom. Melanin synthesis is performed by many organisms using the tyrosine metabolism pathway, a general pathway that utilizes a type-three copper oxidase protein, called PO-candidates (phenoloxidase candidates). While melanin synthesis is well-characterized in organisms like arthropods and humans, it is not as well-understood in non-model organisms such as cnidarians.
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- * The study investigates how various coral species and their algal symbionts respond to SCTLD by analyzing gene expression profiles from a transmission experiment.
- * Key findings show that SCTLD infection increases expression of specific genes linked to the breakdown of algal symbionts and that the disease's severity varies depending on the type of symbiotic algae present.
Analysis of Spatial Gene Expression at the Cellular Level in Stony Corals.
Methods Mol Biol
April 2022
Article Synopsis
- Scleractinians, or stony corals, are colonial organisms with strong abilities to regenerate and a complex immune system, making them ideal for studying the relationship between immunity and regeneration.
- Understanding this relationship is crucial for maintaining the health of coral reefs, which are vital ecosystems.
- The text outlines a protocol for using in situ hybridization with RNA probes to explore how immune factors are expressed in stony corals during their regeneration process.
Gene expression, especially in multispecies experiments, is used to gain insight into the genetic basis of how organisms adapt and respond to changing environments. However, evolutionary processes that can influence gene expression patterns between species such as the presence of paralogues which arise from gene duplication events are rarely accounted for. Paralogous transcripts can alter the transcriptional output of a gene, and thus exclusion of these transcripts can obscure important biological differences between species.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPattern recognition receptors (PRRs) are evolutionarily ancient and crucial components of innate immunity, recognizing danger-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) and activating host defenses. Basal non-bilaterian animals such as cnidarians must rely solely on innate immunity to defend themselves from pathogens. By investigating cnidarian PRR repertoires we can gain insight into the evolution of innate immunity in these basal animals.
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