The majority of benthic marine invertebrates have a complex life cycle, during which the pelagic larvae select a suitable substrate, attach to it, and then metamorphose into benthic adults. Anthropogenic ocean acidification (OA) is postulated to affect larval metamorphic success through an altered protein expression pattern (proteome structure) and post-translational modifications. To test this hypothesis, larvae of an economically and ecologically important barnacle species Balanus amphitrite, were cultured from nauplius to the cyprid stage in the present (control) and in the projected elevated concentrations of CO2 for the year 2100 (the OA treatment). Cyprid response to OA was analyzed at the total proteome level as well as two protein post-translational modification (phosphorylation and glycosylation) levels using a 2-DE based proteomic approach. The cyprid proteome showed OA-driven changes. Proteins that were differentially up or down regulated by OA come from three major groups, namely those related to energy-metabolism, respiration, and molecular chaperones, illustrating a potential strategy that the barnacle larvae may employ to tolerate OA stress. The differentially expressed proteins were tentatively identified as OA-responsive, effectively creating unique protein expression signatures for OA scenario of 2100. This study showed the promise of using a sentinel and non-model species to examine the impact of OA at the proteome level.
In order to allow full comparability with other ocean acidification data sets, the R package seacarb (Lavigne and Gattuso, 2011) was used to compute a complete and consistent set of carbonate system variables, as described by Nisumaa et al. (2010). In this dataset the original values were archived in addition with the recalculated parameters (see related PI).
Supplement to: Wong, Kevin K W; Lane, Ackley Charles; Leung, Priscilla TY; Thlyagarajan, V (2011): Response of larval barnacle proteome to CO2-driven seawater acidification. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part D: Genomics & Proteomics, 6(3), 310-321
