More on Elysia crispata - feeding, DNA etc

May 8, 2003
From: Skip Pierce

Note added 30 May 2006: This may also refer to Elysia clarki, a new species which was previously considered a colour form of E. crispata

Hi again Bill,
I want to be cautious on the following because we have not been working with E. crispata very long, but in answer to Kathe's question - we have not found fucoxanthin in E. crispata (haven't looked for it, actually). We have found a gene in the slug DNA for one of the proteins in the chloroplast light harvesting system that is called fucoxanthin-chlorophyll binding protein. Without boring all your readers to tears, the presence of the protein does not necessarily mean that the pigment fucoxanthin is present-possibly it's just a type of chlorophyll binding protein that binds different pigments in different species-and I don't think E. crispata eats brown algae, but might eat diatoms from surface films. Anyway, for us the issue is where the endosymbiotic plastids come from in E. crispata. We're isolating plastid DNA from endosymbiotic plastids isolated from adult slugs and doing PCR. We're also doing juvenile feeding experiments. We aren't done yet, but unlike E. chlorotica which is every specific in it's algal food requirements, E. crispata may turn out to either eat a lot of different stuff (which will make our cell biological studies a nightmare ie - might be more than one species' plastids) or else switch algal species as it grows - just do not know yet, but we may fairly soon - or not as these experiments sometimes go.

Skip

pierce@chuma1.cas.usf.edu

Pierce, S.K., 2003 (May 8) More on Elysia crispata - feeding, DNA etc. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/9879

Thanks Skip,
Don't worry about 'boring all your readers to tears'. The number of daily visits to the Forum continues to rise - last month there were over 1600 per day. I guess they aren't all interested in fucoxanthins, but those that are will be grateful for your progress reports.
Cheers
Bill Rudman

Factsheet

Elysia crispata

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