Proteomic Determinants of Embryonic Resistance to Heat Shock in Petrolisthes cinctipes
Author: Rafael Leon
Faculty Supervisor: Jonathon Stillman
Department: Biology
In marine systems, increases in ocean heat content elevate the risk of extreme weather events (marine heat waves) and lesser scale warming over a long period of time. The rocky intertidal is a marine habitat which also experiences warming, where heat stress can cause mass mortality, decrease energy budgets, and alter behavior. Intertidal organisms have different ways of responding to heat stress, be it through phenotypic changes, migration to better habitats, or evolution. Notably, a study by T. Yockachonis found that in porcelain crab embryos there is variation in heat resistance for egg clutches from different mothers. Little is known about the biochemical determinants to heat resistance for intertidal decapod crustaceans in their early life stages. I hypothesize that maternal effects in the form of protein provisioning may be the mechanism for variance in heat resistance across broods. To that end, this study will use embryos from the porcelain crab (Petrolisthes cinctipes) analyzing how their proteome profiles correlate with thermal stress resistance or sensitivity in later stages of embryo development. To achieve this, egg clutches will be collected from crabs after which we will freeze all but 24 of the embryos from each clutch. The 24 live ones will be used to assess heat stress responses, with 12 serving as the heat stress treatment and the other twelve as a control group. These groups will be monitored through development and scored based on their yolk consumption and hatching rates, then from these metrics we will select heat resistant and sensitive clutches for proteomics. From this data we will better understand the mechanisms of heat resistance in porcelain crab embryos. This study will be the first to employ proteomics to assess mechanisms of developmental plasticity in embryos of decapod crustaceans.