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Acropora millepora frags for genomics


Mikhail Matz

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Hi folks - I am looking to buy a few (2-3) small fragments of Acropora millepora. We need it for genome sequencing - so if you have your favorite A.millepora in your tank there is a chance to get its genome completely sequenced (for free).

cheers

Misha

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Hi folks - I am looking to buy a few (2-3) small fragments of Acropora millepora. We need it for genome sequencing - so if you have your favorite A.millepora in your tank there is a chance to get its genome completely sequenced (for free).
cheers
Misha
Dr. Matz,

I'd be happy to donate a few mille frags in the name of science. I'll send you a message to coordinate.

-Ty
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Reporting: 

Isolated genomic DNA from Ty's "Solomonian blue" and John Sorkness' "Indonesian green" (my own code name for the lack of better id). Ended up using John's sample - it yielded beautiful intact DNA. For some inexplicable reason  "Solomonian blue" repeatedly yielded DNA with considerable degradation, even though the frag itself is thicker (and therefore looks kind of happier?) than John's. Both frags were looking good, putting tentacles out in my tank. Interesting. Maybe Solomonian coral goes through a lot of tissue remodeling? (something to research in the future)

Anyway, sent "Indonesian green" DNA off for genome sequencing. We still need to establish the actual identity of this frag with John and Ty (this is going to be a rather famous coral individual after all).

Thanks everybody for responses, and special thanks to Ty and John!! Will mention you both in the paper's acknowledgements section.

cheers

Misha

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Reporting: 
Isolated genomic DNA from Ty's "Solomonian blue" and John Sorkness' "Indonesian green" (my own code name for the lack of better id). Ended up using John's sample - it yielded beautiful intact DNA. For some inexplicable reason  "Solomonian blue" repeatedly yielded DNA with considerable degradation, even though the frag itself is thicker (and therefore looks kind of happier?) than John's. Both frags were looking good, putting tentacles out in my tank. Interesting. Maybe Solomonian coral goes through a lot of tissue remodeling? (something to research in the future)
Anyway, sent "Indonesian green" DNA off for genome sequencing. We still need to establish the actual identity of this frag with John and Ty (this is going to be a rather famous coral individual after all).
Thanks everybody for responses, and special thanks to Ty and John!! Will mention you both in the paper's acknowledgements section.
cheers
Misha
That's great Misha! This is so exciting and I appreciate you keeping us and and club in the loop about it!
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Reporting: 
Isolated genomic DNA from Ty's "Solomonian blue" and John Sorkness' "Indonesian green" (my own code name for the lack of better id). Ended up using John's sample - it yielded beautiful intact DNA. For some inexplicable reason  "Solomonian blue" repeatedly yielded DNA with considerable degradation, even though the frag itself is thicker (and therefore looks kind of happier?) than John's. Both frags were looking good, putting tentacles out in my tank. Interesting. Maybe Solomonian coral goes through a lot of tissue remodeling? (something to research in the future)
Anyway, sent "Indonesian green" DNA off for genome sequencing. We still need to establish the actual identity of this frag with John and Ty (this is going to be a rather famous coral individual after all).
Thanks everybody for responses, and special thanks to Ty and John!! Will mention you both in the paper's acknowledgements section.
cheers
Misha

What can I say? I produce quality corals [emoji12] haha. Totally joking, I'm just happy there were some good results and that we were able to help out. Hopefully we can be of further assistance to you. Don't be afraid to ask, we'll be happy to help in anyway we can!
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I was almost thinking that the Palmers Blue mille that I donated has been in captivity for over 10+ years and the green mille I grabbed from John's tank was a newer mariculture, probably just recently added in the last 6 months to his tank. So perhaps that may have affected the integrity of the DNA somehow?

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I was almost thinking that the Palmers Blue mille that I donated has been in captivity for over 10+ years and the green mille I grabbed from John's tank was a newer mariculture, probably just recently added in the last 6 months to his tank. So perhaps that may have affected the integrity of the DNA somehow?

I think it's just the acropower [emoji23]
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Nice hypothesis indeed! How shall we test it?

How about I drop you off another frag of a long-term captive kept coral and a frag of a newly added mariculture and see if we see the same DNA degradation? Since both frags will be from my tank, it will help us isolate if it is a condition in my tank that causes the DNA degradation you observed or if the issue is potentially the duration of recorded captivity.

 

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Is DNA impacted by longer term captivity? Trying to wrap my head around that one.

Ty you can also give me a frag of your blue Mille and I can grow it for a few months in the same conditions as the "Indonesian green" and then send that to the lab. That could isolate environmental conditions being an influencing factor.

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I'm curious how a decade of fragging and moving through so many different hobbyist aquariums along the journey does affect DNA.  It seems like that takes natural selection out of the process of adaptation, since it is completely asexual?

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Is DNA impacted by longer term captivity? Trying to wrap my head around that one.

 

Ty you can also give me a frag of your blue Mille and I can grow it for a few months in the same conditions as the "Indonesian green" and then send that to the lab. That could isolate environmental conditions being an influencing factor.

I think that's the next step if both of my frags turn out to have DNA degradation. Its also a good way to trick me into giving you frags out of my tank. [emoji12]

 

In the name of science... I swear!

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I'm curious how a decade of fragging and moving through so many different hobbyist aquariums along the journey does affect DNA.  It seems like that takes natural selection out of the process of adaptation, since it is completely asexual?
I'm very curious about this myself. I have several acros that have been in captivity for over a decade (not just me but through fragmentation and distribution from other reefers) so it would be an interesting experiment.
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I think that's the next step if both of my frags turn out to have DNA degradation. Its also a good way to trick me into giving you frags out of my tank. [emoji12]  

In the name of science... I swear!

Dang it! You caught on to my scheme [emoji31]

 

It's an interesting question about DNA degradation in a tank over time. I guess the question is what would cause the palmers blue results to come out poorly? Could it have been too small of a sample? Poor laboratory preparation? I personally don't know about DNA degradation as a result of living longer within captivity, unless the environmental itself is causing physical damage to the makeup of the DNA. Corals are constantly growing and replenishing tissue as they build new skeleton. Single coral colonies in the wild can live to be hundreds and thousands of years old, so age may not be a factor. It does raise many new questions though. Like do blue corals yield poor DNA results compared to brown or green corals? Does the lack or abundance of zooxanthellae impact the DNA results? Truly fascinating issue to say the least!!

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For my two cents:  Has past research ruled out the possibility of senescence?   If not that would be something to look at, reproduction of a coral colony by "fragging" does not stop an aging process .   Does the initial extraction by Dr. Matz's lab include DNA from the holobiont? Are we seeing changes due to shifts in the corals associated microbes?

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The first thing to show is that the effect is statistically reproducible - i.e., we have fragmented DNA in long-timer clones and intact DNA in newly "domesticated" clones. This will require not just one more, but many more fragments (at least 20 if we are talking 10 old and 10 new, but ideally more), with decent enough knowledge of when they were brought into culture (there could be more than two grades, for example "old", ""medium", "new"). The senescence angle suggested by Timfish is really interesting and might lead to a very cool paper if we are able to gather good evidence. I will need to secure a small grant to fund this, which is always iffy but should be doable, but finding experimental fragments will be the major contingency - do you folks think it is realistic to find >20 coral clones with approximately known time since brought to aquarium culture?..

Misha

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