Cellular Stress Response of Scleractinian Coral Acropora Robusta and Acropora Florida in Bidong Island

Abstract

The collapse of the coral reef worldwide is connected with multiple stressors. All of these stressors eventually will result in overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and cause oxidative stress in coral. Oxidative stress that producing ROS are able to modify proteins and making carbonyl as well as thiols of cysteine susceptible. Thus, this study was conducted to examine the cellular stress response of scleractinian coral by assessing the enzymatic assays and sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) of two species, Acropora robusta and Acropora florida in Bidong Island, off coast of Terengganu, South China Sea, Malaysia. The glutathione S-transferase (GST) and catalase (CAT) assays were used as benchmark against carbonyl and thiol oxidation gel separation. Significant interaction were found between different stations for GST (p < 0.05) and CAT (p < 0.05) activities. Moreover, prior to one-dimensional electrophoresis (1DE), thiol proteins were labelled with 5-iodoacetamidofluorescein (IAF) whilst carbonyl protein were labelled with fluorescein-5-thiosemicarbazide (FTSC). Interestingly, results obtained showed that protein range between 25 and 45 kDa molecular weight were presence in both fluorescence tagging for thiols and carbonyls in both species. However, specific-proteins changes responses are not included in this study. Results obtained from this investigation clearly revealed some similarities on a portion of redox proteome across stations indicating oxidative stress maybe a common response and the effects are unique for early warning observation. Corals that experienced oxidative stress had higher chaperoning level and protein turnover activity. Further studies should be considered to identify the stressed-protein that response to the stressor.Keywords Acropora florida Acropora robusta CatalaseGlutathione-s-transferaseOxidative stress