Thalassospira sp. isolated from the oligotrophic eastern Mediterranean Sea exhibits chemotaxis toward inorganic phosphate during starvation.

ABSTRACT: The eastern Mediterranean Sea represents an ultraoligotrophic environment where soluble phosphate limits the growth of bacterioplankton. Correspondingly, genes coding for high-affinity phosphate uptake systems and for organophosphonate utilization are highly prevalent in the plankton metagenome. Chemotaxis toward inorganic phosphate constitutes an alternative strategy to cope with phosphate limitation, but so far has only been demonstrated for two bacterial pathogens and an archaeon, and not in any free-living planktonic bacterium. In the present study, bacteria affiliated with the genus Thalassospira were found to constitute a regular, low-abundance member of the bacterioplankton that can be detected throughout the water column of the eastern Mediterranean Sea. A representative (strain EM

SUBMITTER: Hutz A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3127729 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature