Are control of extracellular acid-base balance and regulation of skeleton genes linked to resistance to ocean acidification in adult sea urchins?

Editorial: Fitness of Marine Calcifiers in the Future Acidifying Ocean

“…There is now a large body of literature which demonstrates that calcifiers can indeed be impaired by OA in various aspects, such as physiology, calcification, growth, and survival (Harvey et al, 2013). Nevertheless, growing evidence reveals that some calcifiers can prevail in the CO 2 -acidified environment and produce durable calcareous structures (e.g., Leung et al, 2019Leung et al, , 2020aDi Giglio et al, 2020), implying their resistance and adaptability to OA. Thus, more comprehensive studies are needed to decipher how calcifiers adjust or succumb to OA and how warming modulates the impacts of OA on calcifiers.…”

Ocean acidification induces distinct transcriptomic responses across life history stages of the sea urchin Heliocidaris erythrogramma

“…Msp130 (SPU_002088) expression was upregulated in embryos and larvae of H. erythrogramma in response to OA, while four paralogues, Msp130_1 (SPU_013821) , Msp130r3 (SPU_013823) , Msp130r4 (SPU_014496), and Msp130r5 (SPU_015763), were also upregulated in either or both embryos and larvae. Several prior studies have reported changes in Msp130 expression in response to OA in sea urchin larvae, in one case increasing (Martin et al., 2011) and in others decreasing (Di Giglio et al., 2020; Kurihara et al., 2012; Stumpp et al., 2011).…”

“…The observation that both embryos and larvae show an OA-sensitive enrichment in biomineralization genes is expected, as the developmental processes that produce the larval skeleton begin in the early embryo (Shashikant et al, 2018b). Several prior studies identified individual genes involved in biomineralization that are OA-responsive in sea urchins (Di Giglio et al, 2020;Martin et al, 2011;O'Donnell et al, 2010;Stumpp et al, 2011) but we are not aware of any prior study in echinoderms that found an enriched transcriptional response to OA among biomineralization genes as a functional class using an unbiased approach.…”

“…Msp130 expression increased 1.82-fold and 1.54-fold at pH T 7.6 in H. erythrogramma embryos and larvae, respectively. Prior studies have reported changes in Msp130 expression of a comparable magnitude under OA conditions (Di Giglio et al, 2020;Kurihara et al, 2012;Martin et al, 2011;Stumpp et al, 2011). However, these stress responses are small compared to changes in Msp130 expression levels during normal development (Israel et al, 2016;Tu et al, 2014;Wong et al, 2019;Wygoda et al, 2014).…”

“…Msp130r4 (SPU_014496), and Msp130r5 (SPU_015763), were also upregulated in either or both embryos and larvae. Several prior studies have reported changes in Msp130 expression in response to OA in sea urchin larvae, in one case increasing (Martin et al, 2011) and in others decreasing (Di Giglio et al, 2020;Kurihara et al, 2012;Stumpp et al, 2011).…”