Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Sep 15;11(9):bio059413.
doi: 10.1242/bio.059413. Epub 2022 Sep 13.

Reproducible propagation technique for the symbiotic cnidarian model system Cassiopea xamachana

Casandra Newkirk  1 , Sankalp Vadlapudi  1 , Mahita Sadula  1 , Cheri Arbello  1 , Tingting Xiang  1
Affiliations

Reproducible propagation technique for the symbiotic cnidarian model system Cassiopea xamachana

Casandra Newkirk et al. Biol Open. .

Abstract

The phylum Cnidaria is composed of corals, jellyfish, hydras, and sea anemones. Cnidarians are well-known for their regenerative capability, with many species maintaining the ability to regenerate complete structures. This regenerative capacity has been used casually for propagation purposes (via dissection) for some cnidarians used in laboratory research but has yet been documented in a manner meant to be reproducible. One such cnidarian model system is the scyphozoan jellyfish Cassiopea xamachana. C. xamachana has become an emerging model system for studying the cnidarian-algal symbiotic relationship, so determining a reliable and fast method for expansion of laboratory animals is crucial. Here we outline a reproducible propagation method for continued generation and growth of C. xamachana polyps. This article has an associated First Person interview with the first author of the paper.

Keywords: Cassiopea; Cnidarian-algal; Jellyfish; Symbiosis.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests The authors declare that the research performed in this protocol was conducted in the absence of any competing or conflicting interests.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Wound healing in aposymbiotic polyps. Wound healing for cut site 5 days post-cut. Scale bar: 500 µm.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Polyp tentacle count and ephyra oral arm count following cut. (A) Count of tentacle growth of the two halves of three cut aposymbiotic polyps over a 24-day period. (B) Count of tentacle growth of the two halves of one cut symbiotic polyp over a 24-day period. (C) Count of oral arm growth of the two halves of one cut ephyra over a 25-day period. *Polyps that were stressed on day 7 and tentacle count was not obtained; count continued on day 9 following recovery.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Tentacle regeneration of aposymbiotic and symbiotic polyps over a 24-day period. (A) Images of growth of tentacles in a cut aposymbiotic polyp over a 24-day period. (B) Images of growth of tentacles in a cut symbiotic polyp over a 24-day period. Scale bars: 500 µM.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.
Strobilation of symbiotic polyp. Ephyra strobilated from recovered SSB01 infected cut polyp. Scale bars: 1000 µm. (A) Brightfield capture of SSB01 ephyra. (B) Autofluorescence of algal chlorophyll in SSB01 ephyra.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Abrams, M. J., Basinger, T., Yuan, W., Guo, C. L. and Goentoro, L. (2015). Self-repairing symmetry in jellyfish through mechanically driven reorganization. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 112, E3365-E3373. 10.1073/pnas.1502497112 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bode, H. R. (2003). Head regeneration in Hydra. Dev. Dyn. 226, 225-236. 10.1002/dvdy.10225 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bradshaw, B., Thompson, K. and Frank, U. (2015). Distinct mechanisms underlie oral vs aboral regeneration in the cnidarian Hydractinia echinata. Elife 4, e05506. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bucher, M., Wolfowicz, I., Voss, P. A., Hambleton, E. A. and Guse, A. (2016). Development and symbiosis establishment in the cnidarian endosymbiosis model Aiptasia sp. Sci. Rep. 6, 1-11. 10.1038/srep19867 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Curtis, S. K. and Cowden, R. R. (1972). Regenerative capacities of the scyphistoma of Cassiopea (Phylum, Coelenterata; Class, Scyphozoa). Acta Embryol. Exp. Suppl. 1972, 429-454. - PubMed

Publication types