Project description:Elysia crispata is a tropical sea slug Sacoglossa is a superorder of marine sea slugs, of which a few speciesthat can retain intracellular functional chloroplasts from their its algae prey, a mechanism termed kleptoplasty. Elysia crispata is a tropical species of Sacoglossa that can feed through this mechanism on and acquire chloroplasts from a variety of macroalgae. Thisese sea slugs, as other gastropods, produce mucus, a viscous secretion with multiple functions, such as lubrication, protection, and locomotion. This study presents the first comprehensive analysis of the mucus proteome of the sea slug E. crispata using gel electrophoresis and HPLC-MS/MS. We identified 306 proteins in the mucus secretions of this animal, despite the limited entries for E. crispata in the Uniprot database. The reproducibility of the mucus sampling technique was evaluated revealing no significant differences in protein abundance across samples. The functional annotation of the mucus proteome using Gene Ontology identified proteins involved in different functions such as hydrolase activity (molecular function), carbohydrate-derived metabolic processes (biological processes) and cytoskeletal organization (cell component). Moreover, a high proportion of proteins with enzymatic activity in the mucus of E. crispata suggests potential biotechnological applications including antimicrobial and antitumor activities. Putative antimicrobial properties are reinforced by the high abundance of hydrolases. This study also identified proteins common in mucus samples from various species, supporting a common mechanism of mucus in protecting cells and tissues while facilitating animal movement. This study highlights the need for further research to fully understand the roles of these proteins in mucus, their potential impact on animal physiology, and the influence of genetics, and environmental factors, including the type of mucus, on protein composition and relative abundance.
Project description:Some sacoglossan sea slugs sequester functional plastids (kleptoplasts) from their food, which continue to fix CO2 in a light dependent manner inside the animals. In plants and algae, plastid and mitochondrial metabolism are linked in ways that reach beyond the provision of energy-rich carbon compounds through photosynthesis, but how slug mitochondria respond to starvation or alterations in plastid biochemistry has not been explored. We assembled the mitochondrial genomes of the plastid-sequestering sea slugs Elysia timida and Elysia cornigera from RNA-Seq data that was complemented with standard sequencing of mitochondrial DNA through primer walking. Our data confirm the sister species relationship of the two Sacoglossa and from the analysis of changes in mitochondrial-associated metabolism during starvation we speculate that kleptoplasts might aid in the rerouting or recycling of reducing power independent of, yet maybe improved by, photosynthesis.