Bisphenol A affects the development and the onset of photosymbiosis in the acoel Symsagittifera roscoffensis

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Abstract

Photosymbiosis indicates a long-term association between animals and photosynthetic organisms. It has been mainly investigated in photosymbiotic cnidarians, while other photosymbiotic associations have been largely neglected. The acoel Symsagittifera roscoffensis lives in obligatory symbiosis with the microalgal Tetraselmis convolutae and has recently emerged as alternative model to study photosymbiosis. Here, we investigated the effects of Bisphenol A, a common plastic additive, on two pivotal stages of its lifecycle: aposymbiotic juvenile development and photosymbiogenesis. Based on our results, this pollutant altered the development of the worms and their capacity to engulf algae from the environment at concentrations higher than the levels detected in seawater, yet aligning with those documented in sediments of populated areas. Data provide novel information about the effects of pollutants on photosymbiotic associations and prompt the necessity to monitor their concentrations in marine environmental matrices.

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  1. ). The average number of algal symbionts further dropped at 10 μM (average: 0.5 symbionts / individual; Fig. 3 D), with a significant decrease compared to 5 μM (P = 0.01) and to all the previous concentrations (all P < 0.001; Fig. 3 E).

    Do you think the high concentration of BPA is impacting Tetraselmis swimming, preventing them being taken up by the acoels? or that the Acoels are impacted, preventing them from eating?

    Further, since they're obligate, do you think the acoel swimming defects and miRNA expression could be impacted by the reduced number of tetraselmis cells in the host body?

    Futher, do acoels maintained in high conc. of BPA remain viable through adulthood?

    This is a very neat paper taking advantage of a really cool system! Thanks for sharing!!!!

  2. . Moreover, thanks to a newly optimized protocol for whole mount in situ hybridization, we reported for the first time the expression of the pan-neural miRNA, miR-124, in acoels and demonstrated that BPA disrupts neural development in S. roscoffensis. Similar effects have been already documented in other marine invertebrates.

    This is very cool! But since you also show a lack of uptake of Tetraselmis, do you think there could be an issue with the 5 µM BPA treated acoels not taking up the miRNA? I think it would be useful to add a control miRNA that shows expression of an uneffected pathway is detectable in the 5 µM BPA treated animals.