Figures
A green fluorescent protein (GFP)-labeled strain of the coral pathogen Vibrio coralliilyticus.
Coral diseases have fundamentally altered Caribbean coral reef ecosystems and pose a growing threat to Indo-Pacific reefs, yet little is known about the etiologies and pathogeneses of many of these diseases. Coral disease researchers require the development of tools to detect and quantify putative pathogens in both controlled laboratory experiments and environmentally derived samples. Novel tools, such as this GFP-labeled strain of the coral pathogen V. coralliilyticus (shown here as a green aggregate), are currently being used to clarify the role of individual microbes in the onset and spread of coral disease lesions (see Pollock et al., doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1002183).
Image Credit: F. Joseph Pollock, James Cook University and the Australian Institute of Marine Science, Australia
Citation: (2011) PLoS Pathogens Issue Image | Vol. 7(10) October 2011. PLoS Pathog 7(10): ev07.i10. https://doi.org/10.1371/image.ppat.v07.i10
Published: October 27, 2011
Copyright: © 2011 Pollock. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Coral diseases have fundamentally altered Caribbean coral reef ecosystems and pose a growing threat to Indo-Pacific reefs, yet little is known about the etiologies and pathogeneses of many of these diseases. Coral disease researchers require the development of tools to detect and quantify putative pathogens in both controlled laboratory experiments and environmentally derived samples. Novel tools, such as this GFP-labeled strain of the coral pathogen V. coralliilyticus (shown here as a green aggregate), are currently being used to clarify the role of individual microbes in the onset and spread of coral disease lesions (see Pollock et al., doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1002183).
Image Credit: F. Joseph Pollock, James Cook University and the Australian Institute of Marine Science, Australia