Data from 'Disparate inventories of hypoxia gene sets across corals align with inferred environmental resilience'

Abstract

Aquatic deoxygenation has been flagged as an overlooked but key factor driving mass bleaching-induced coral mortality as oxygen supplies lower to concentrations that can elicit an aerobic metabolic crisis i.e., hypoxia. Surprisingly little is known of the fundamental hypoxia responsive gene set inventory corals possess to respond to deoxygenation. It is unclear whether variation in gene copy number across species exist that potentially affect gene expression with subsequent differences in the effectiveness of a given stress response. Here, we used an ortholog-based meta-analysis to investigate how hypoxia gene inventories differed amongst coral species to assess putative copy number variation (CNV) across 24 coral protein sets from species with a sequenced genome that span corals from the robust and complex clade. We found approximately a third of the investigated genes exhibited copy number differences, and these differences were species-specific rather than the robust-complex split. Zipped folders of OrthoFinder results: 'Results_Feb16' contains results including all 24 coral species from 7 genera (Acropora, Pocillopora, Stylophora, Montastrea, Montipora, Obricella, Porites). 'gene_sets_acropora_acuminata_only' contains results including just one species per genera with Acropora acuminata. 'gene_sets_acropora_cytherea_only' contains results including just one species per genera with Acropora cytherea. 'gene_sets_acropora_digitifera_only' contains results including just one species per genera with Acropora digitifera.

Results and Interpretations from these analyses are published open access here: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.834332 Full citation: Alderdice R, Hume BCC, Kühl M, Pernice M, Suggett DJ, Voolstra CR. Disparate inventories of hypoxia gene sets across corals align with inferred environmental resilience. Front Mar Sci. 2022;9. doi:10.3389/fmars.2022.834332 Scripts are available here: https://github.com/didillysquat/alderdice_2021