Ricaurte Chica, Martha Lucia

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    Proteomic profiles of two threatened Caribbean coral species Acropora palmata and Orbicella faveolata
    (2022-06-30) Ricaurte Chica, Martha Lucia; Schizas, Nikolaos V.; College of Arts and Sciences - Sciences; Alfaro, Monica; Weil, Ernesto F.; Armstrong, Roy; Department of Marine Sciences; Cruzado, Ivette
    This dissertation consists of three studies related to scleractinian corals to understand how they respond at the molecular and cellular level to changes in temperature. The first study was designed to examine the proteomic response of the endangered Caribbean coral Acropora palmata during the 2010 mass bleaching event in the Caribbean. The data was validated using Western blot analysis for a selected set of differentially expressed proteins. This work was published in the peer-reviewed journal Marine Pollution Bulletin (Ricaurte et al. 2016). The second and third studies are focused on the proteomic response of reef-building corals Acropora palmata and Orbicella faveolata during ambient and seasonal fluctuations of sea water temperature. Since both corals are threatened species and have important ecological and cultural value in the Caribbean, it is important to understand how the proteome is altered with seasonal changes in temperature since these studies provide us with information on the baseline responses of corals to normal environmental conditions. These baseline responses can be then compared to responses during extreme, stressful events such as prolonged water thermal anomalies. In the second study, a comparative proteomic analysis of Acropora palmata during January and February, representing the cooler dry season, and August and September, representing the warmer wet seasons of 2014 and 2015 was done. Two-Dimensional Gel Electrophoresis (2D-GE), Mass Spectrometry (MS/MS) analysis, and RT-PCR techniques were used to identify the differentially expressed proteins in both seasons. The results indicated that temperature induced significant metabolic changes in A. palmata related to enzymatic, translational and apoptotic processes, among other important cellular functions (manuscript in review in the journal Marine Systems, 2022). In the third study, a comparative proteomic analysis of the Caribbean coral Orbicella faveolata between the dry and wet seasons during 2014 and 2015 was done. The identification of proteins through mass spectrometry (MS/MS), provided a new perspective on the response of O. faveolata to heat tolerance and the acclimatization mechanism involved with fluctuating temperatures (manuscript in review in the journal Marine Genomics, 2022).