A candidate transporter allowing symbiotic dinoflagellates to feed their coral hosts

The symbiotic partnership between corals and dinoflagellate algae is crucial to coral reefs. Corals provide their algal symbionts with shelter, carbon dioxide and nitrogen. In exchange, the symbiotic algae supply their animal hosts with fixed carbon in the form of glucose. But how glucose is transferred from the algal symbiont to the animal host is unknown. We reasoned that a transporter resident in the dinoflagellate cell membrane would facilitate outward transfer of glucose to the surrounding host animal tissue. We identified a candidate transporter in the cnidarian symbiont dinoflagellate Breviolum minutum that belongs to the ubiquitous family of facilitative sugar uniporters known as SWEETs (sugars will eventually be exported transporters). Previous gene expression analyses had shown that BmSWEET1 is upregulated when the algae are living symbiotically in a cnidarian host by comparison to the free-living state [1, 2]. We used immunofluorescence microscopy to localise BmSWEET1 in the dinoflagellate cell membrane. Substrate preference assays in a yeast surrogate transport system showed that BmSWEET1 transports glucose. Quantitative microscopy showed that symbiotic B. minutum cells have significantly more BmSWEET1 protein than free-living cells of the same strain, consistent with export during symbiosis but not during the free-living, planktonic phase. Thus, BmSWEET1 is in the right place, at the right time, and has the right substrate to be the transporter with which symbiotic dinoflagellate algae feed their animal hosts to power coral reefs.