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DNA Testing Identifies Suspect Bacteria In Coral Reef Disease

Date:
May 27, 2002
Source:
University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign
Summary:
Using molecular microbiology techniques, scientists are a significant step closer to understanding and identifying the deadly microbes responsible for the mysterious black band disease that is destroying the world’s coral reef ecosystems.
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SALT LAKE CITY — Using molecular microbiology techniques, scientists are a significant step closer to understanding and identifying the deadly microbes responsible for the mysterious black band disease that is destroying the world’s coral reef ecosystems.

One of the most destructive and widespread of the coral diseases, black band disease is characterized by a ring-shaped bacterial mat that rapidly migrates across a coral colony, leaving dead tissue and bare coral skeleton in its wake.

By sequencing the entire 16S rRNA gene – a genetic fingerprint found in all living organisms – geologist Bruce Fouke and postdoctoral microbiologist researchers Jorge

Frias-Lopez and George Bonheyo at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have now identified the main bacteria associated with the black band bacterial mat causing the disease.

“The black band microbial mat is dominated by large filamentous cyanobacteria that were previously optically identified as Phormidium corallyticum,” Fouke said. “Based on the gene sequence analyses, however, we have identified at least three different closely related species of cyanobacteria associated with the bacterial black band mat in different ocean basins around the world.”

In earlier work, Fouke and his colleagues showed that the bacteria inhabiting the

black-band disease microbial mat were different from those found either in healthy coral tissue or in the overlaying seawater. That work, which was based upon partial sequencing of bacterial 16S rRNA genes, appeared in the May 2002 issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

To make a more accurate identification of the cyanobacterium inhabiting the black band biomat, the researchers recently collected samples from infected corals on the reef tracts of Papua New Guinea in the Indo-Pacific Ocean and the Netherlands Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. Then they extracted the microbes’ 16S rRNA gene in their molecular geomicrobiology laboratory and completed the sequencing at the W.M. Keck Center for Comparative and Functional Genomics on the Urbana campus.

“Results from 57 sequences taken from 12 different bacterial mats show that, except in one case, a unique sequence was obtained from all infected coral species and in all locations,” Fouke said. “Finding the same dominant organism in two widely separated ocean basins indicates that the pathogenic development of black band disease is a globally consistent phenomenon.”

There has been considerable controversy as to whether black band disease is caused by environmental stress or is an infectious disease, or both, Fouke said. “Factors thought to contribute to the disease are increases in sea surface temperature and possibly the dumping of sewage and other pollutants onto reef systems.”

In their earlier study of black band disease in corals off C


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Cite This Page:

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign. "DNA Testing Identifies Suspect Bacteria In Coral Reef Disease." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 27 May 2002. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/05/020523080001.htm>.
University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign. (2002, May 27). DNA Testing Identifies Suspect Bacteria In Coral Reef Disease. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 27, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/05/020523080001.htm
University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign. "DNA Testing Identifies Suspect Bacteria In Coral Reef Disease." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/05/020523080001.htm (accessed March 27, 2024).

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