Differential proteomic analysis of the massive star coral Orbicella faveolata exposed to experimentally elevated temperatures (NCEI Accession 0242879)

An inshore-to-offshore gradient in reef coral resilience to high temperatures exists in the Upper Florida Keys, with massive corals of the highly turbid nearshore reefs demonstrating higher capacity to resist summer bleaching than offshore conspecifics. After corroborating this trend with diverse Orbicella faveolata genotypes exposed to elevated temperatures in the laboratory, a proteomic analysis was taken with a subset of 20 samples via iTRAQ labeling followed by nano-liquid chromatography+mass spectrometry; 46 host coral and 40 Symbiodiniaceae dinoflagellate proteins passed all stringent quality control criteria, and the partial proteomes of biopsies of 1) healthy controls, 2) sub-lethally-stressed samples, and 3) actively bleaching corals differed significantly from one another. The proteomic data were then used to train predictive models of coral colony bleaching susceptibility, and both generalized multivariate regression and neural network models were capable of doing so with 100% accuracy. Successful future testing of the predictive power of these models in situ will establish the capacity to monitor coral health on a proactive, pre-death timescale.