First Description of Sulphur-Oxidizing Bacterial Symbiosis in a Cnidarian (Medusozoa) Living in Sulphidic Shallow-Water Environments
Fig 2
Ultrastructural analysis of polyp by TEM.
Thin sections clearly show that the bacteria (arrows) are distributed exclusively on the body surface of polyps. No intracellular bacteria could be observed suggesting that there is no endosymbiosis in Cladonema sp. Higher magnification of the ectosymbionts (B) shows that the cytoplasm of the bacteria located outside the host tissue (b) contained two kinds of inclusions. The non-membrane-bound inclusions correspond to glycogen-like granules (white arrows) distributed throughout the cytoplasm while empty membrane-bound inclusions (curved arrow) correspond to sulphur granules probably located within the periplasm. The ectosymbionts appear to be fixed to the host cytoplasmic membrane (C) though atypical structures (see inset). Fig D displays a higher magnification of an atypical structure which is organized on two levels of “tubes” with a central tuft in contact with the bacteria. The nature of such “tubes” is unknown.