Capturing diversity of marine heterotrophic protists: one cell at a time.

ABSTRACT: Recent applications of culture-independent, molecular methods have revealed unexpectedly high diversity in a variety of functional and phylogenetic groups of microorganisms in the ocean. However, none of the existing research tools are free from significant limitations, such as PCR and cloning biases, low phylogenetic resolution and others. Here, we employed novel, single-cell sequencing techniques to assess the composition of small (<10 μm diameter), heterotrophic protists from the Gulf of Maine. Single cells were isolated by flow cytometry, their genomes amplified, and 18S rRNA marker genes were amplified and sequenced. We compared the results to traditional environmental PCR cloning of sorted cells. The diversity of heterotrophic protists was significantly higher in the library of singl

SUBMITTER: Heywood JL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3105736 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature