Coral skeletons are materials composed of inorganic aragonitic fibres and organic molecules including proteins, sugars and lipids that are highly organized to form a solid biomaterial upon which the animals live. The skeleton contains tens of proteins, all of which are encoded in the animal genome and secreted during the biomineralization process. While recent advances are revealing the functions and evolutionary history of some of these proteins, how they are spatially arranged in the skeleton is unknown. Using a combination of chemical cross-linking and high-resolution tandem mass spectrometry, we identify, for the first time, the spatial interactions of the proteins embedded within the skeleton of the stony coral Stylophora pistillata. Our subsequent network analysis revealed that several coral acid-rich proteins are invariably associated with carbonic anhydrase(s), alpha-collagen, cadherins and other calcium-binding proteins. These spatial arrangements clearly show that protein–protein interactions in coral skeletons are highly coordinated and are key to understanding the formation and persistence of coral skeletons through time.

珊瑚的骨骼是由无机的石蒜纤维和有机分子（包括蛋白质，糖和脂类）组成的材料，这些分子高度组织化，形成了动物赖以生存的固体生物材料。骨骼包含数十种蛋白质，所有这些蛋白质都在动物基因组中编码并在生物矿化过程中分泌。尽管最近的进展揭示了其中一些蛋白质的功能和进化史，但如何将它们在骨架中空间排列尚不清楚。通过化学交联和高分辨率串联质谱的结合，我们首次确定了嵌在石珊瑚Stylophora pistillata骨架内的蛋白质的空间相互作用。。我们随后的网络分析表明，几种富含珊瑚酸的蛋白质总是与碳酸酐酶，α-胶原蛋白，钙黏着蛋白和其他钙结合蛋白相关。这些空间安排清楚地表明，珊瑚骨骼中的蛋白质-蛋白质相互作用是高度协调的，对于理解珊瑚骨骼的形成和持久性是至关重要的。