Protocol for the generation of Symbiodiniaceae mutants using UV mutagenesis

Genetic approaches are limited in the dinoflagellate family, Symbiodiniaceae, causing a bottleneck in the discovery of useful mutants toward the goal of preventing future coral bleaching events. In this protocol, we demonstrate the application of UV exposure, coupled with downstream phenotypic screening and mutant isolation, to form a UV mutagenesis pipeline. This pipeline provides an avenue to generate Symbiodiniaceae mutants to help link genotype to phenotype, as well as address previously unanswered questions surrounding relationships with host organisms, like coral. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Jinkerson et al. (2022).¹.