Ecklonia cava- Ecotox Genome & Application to Marine Environment Health Assessment

Abstract

Environmental stress dramatically induces stress responsiveness in an organism and it affects the related genes expressions. The marine forest consisted of the kelp (macro algae) is identical to the ground forest and is worthy of spawning place as well as shelter for various marine organisms. Also they are very important for marine resources and environment-economic values. This study aimed to screen the differentially expressed genes induced by marine environmental changes at genomic level and to prove those gene expressions represent the individual organisms health as well as real environment. The targeted seaweed is Ecklonia cava known as dominant, plentiful and easily collected in Korean coastal regions. First of all, the RNA extraction method was established E. cava before screening of differentially expressed genes by environmental differences and the DNA sequences of several stress responsive genes were found. Massive screening of the differentially expressed genes by environmental changes was attempted by the construction of E. cava cDNA library. As a result, approximately 2700 genes were collected from the standard library and 11 oxidative stress responsive genes were cloned. We compared the gene expression profiling of E.cava collected in non-contaminated and contaminated sites in polluted areas and investigated that profiling differences could respond to the health status in the real environment.