Coastal strains of marine Synechococcus species exhibit increased tolerance to copper shock and a distinctive transcriptional response relative to those of open-ocean strains.

ABSTRACT: Copper appears to be influencing the distribution and abundance of phytoplankton in marine environments, and cyanobacteria are thought to be the most sensitive of the phytoplankton groups to copper toxicity. By using growth assays of phylogenetically divergent clades, we found that coastal strains of marine Synechococcus species were more tolerant to copper shock than open-ocean strains. The global transcriptional response to two levels of copper shock were determined for both a coastal strain and an open-ocean strain of marine Synechococcus species using whole-genome expression microarrays. Both strains showed an osmoregulatory-like response, perhaps as a result of increasing membrane permeability. This could have implications for marine carbon cycling if copper shock leads to dissolved o

SUBMITTER: Stuart RK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2725496 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature