Microbiome and Metabolome Contributions to Coral Health and Disease

AbstractCoral populations are declining worldwide as a result of increased environmental stressors, including disease. Coral health is greatly dependent on complex interactions between the host animal and its associated microbial symbionts. While relatively understudied, there is growing evidence that the coral microbiome contributes to the health and resilience of corals in a variety of ways, similar to more well-studied systems, such as the human microbiome. Many of these interactions are dependent upon the production and exchange of natural products, including antibacterial compounds, quorum-sensing molecules, internal signaling molecules, nutrients, and so on. While advances in sequencing, culturing, and metabolomic techniques have aided in moving forward the understanding of coral microbiome interactions, current sequence and metabolite databases are lacking, hindering detailed descriptions of the microbes and metabolites involved. This review focuses on the roles of coral microbiomes in health and disease processes of coral hosts, with special attention to the coral metabolome. We discuss what is currently known about the relationship between the coral microbiome and disease, of beneficial microbial products or services, and how the manipulation of the coral microbiome may chemically benefit the coral host against disease. Understanding coral microbiome-metabolome interactions is critical to assisting management, conservation, and restoration strategies.