Thieving Slugs Elysia chlorotica is an inch-long, algae-sucking sea slug that hangs out in salt marshes along the east coast of North America, where it dines on the filamentous photosynthetic alga Vaucheria litorea. Using a horny, ribbonlike structure, Elysia punctures a hole in the Vaucheria cells, slurps up the alga’s plastids, sequesters them within its own digestive cells just beneath the epidermis, and feeds on the sugars they produce—a strategy fittingly dubbed kleptoplasty. Elysia can survive for months on the photosynthetic products of the stolen Vaucheria plastids. What is even more impressive, the plastids remain functional within Elysia for almost a year, after which the crafty slug feeds on some more Vaucheria to replenish the stock. If Elysia retains only the plastids of its algal prey, and does not maintain the algal nucleus, which contains most of the plastid-related genes, how do the Vaucheria plastids remain functional within the Elysia cells? The answer, researchers are learning, is that many Vaucheria genes are already integrated into Elysia DNA. Transcriptome sequencing suggests that more than 50 algal genes have been horizontally transferred to the Elysia genome, allowing the slug to operate the Vaucheria plastids and enjoy a solar-powered existence.1
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 06:10:46 +0000
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