Project description:Here, we examined the ramifications of between-species diversity by documenting the transcriptional response of three marine diatoms - Thalassiosira pseudonana, Fragilariopsis cylindrus, and Pseudo-nitzschia multiseries - to the onset of nitrate limitation of growth, a common limiting nutrient in the ocean. Less than 5% of orthologous genes, shared across the three diatoms, displayed the same transcriptional responses across species when growth was limited by nitrate availability. Orthologs, such as those involved in nitrogen uptake and assimilation, as well as carbon metabolism, were differently expressed across the three species. The two pennate diatoms, F. cylindrus and P. multiseries, shared 3,839 clusters without orthologs in the genome of the centric diatom T. pseudonana. A majority of these pennate-clustered genes, as well as the non-orthologous genes in each species, had minimal annotation information, but were often significantly differentially expressed under nitrate limitation, indicating their potential importance in the response to nitrogen availability. Despite these variations in the specific transcriptional response of each diatom, overall transcriptional patterns suggested that all three diatoms displayed a common physiological response to nitrate limitation that consisted of a general reduction in carbon fixation and carbohydrate and fatty acid metabolism and an increase in nitrogen recycling. Transcriptomes were collected for diatom cultures harvested at the onset of stationary phase in low nitrate media (55 M-NM-<M NaNO3, 212 M-NM-<M Na2SiO3, 72.4 M-NM-<M NaH2PO4) or during mid-exponential growth in nutrient-replete media (882 M-NM-<M NaNO3, 106 M-NM-<M Na2SiO3, 36.2 M-NM-<M NaH2PO4) in artificial seawater, maintaining three biological replicates per condition and per diatom (N=18). The SOLiD sequencer (version 4) was used to generate the transcriptomes and the SEAStAR software package was used to process the SOLiD reads and to calculate gene counts. Pooled counts for the nitrate-limited treatment were normalized to pooled counts for the nutrient-replete M-bM-^@M-^\controlM-bM-^@M-^] treatment to generate log fold changes in gene transcription using the R software package edgeR from Bioconductor.
Project description:To identify the molecular components involved in diatom cell division, global transcript level changes were monitored over the silicon-synchronized cell cycle the model diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana.
Project description:Phytoplankton and bacteria form the base of marine ecosystems and their interactions drive global biogeochemical cycles. The effect of bacteria and bacteria-produced compounds on diatoms range from synergistic to pathogenic and can affect the physiology and transcriptional patterns of the interacting diatom. Here, we investigate physiological and transcriptional changes in the marine diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana induced by extracellular metabolites of a known antagonistic bacterium Croceibacter atlanticus. Mono-cultures of C. atlanticus released compounds that inhibited diatom cell division and elicited a distinctive phenotype of enlarged cells with multiple plastids and nuclei, similar to what was observed when the diatom was co-cultured with the live bacteria. The extracellular C. atlanticus metabolites induced transcriptional changes in diatom pathways that include recognition and signaling pathways, cell cycle regulation, carbohydrate and amino acid production, as well as cell wall stability. Phenotypic analysis showed a disruption in the diatom cell cycle progression and an increase in both intra- and extracellular carbohydrates in diatom cultures after bacterial exudate treatment. The transcriptional changes and corresponding phenotypes suggest that extracellular bacterial metabolites, produced independently of direct bacterial-diatom interaction, may modulate diatom metabolism in ways that support bacterial growth.
Project description:Phosphorus (P) is a critical driver of phytoplankton growth and ecosystem structure and function in the ocean. Diatoms are an abundant and widespread functional group of phytoplankton that are responsible for significant amounts of primary production in the ocean, however there has not been a comprehensive study of diatom physiological responses to P deficiency. Here, we coupled deep sequencing of transcript tags and quantitative proteomic analysis from the diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana grown under P-replete and P-deficient conditions. The reads (tags) were mapped to the T. pseudonana genome sequence, confirming expression of 91% of the modeled gene set. A total of 318 genes were differentially regulated with a false discovery rate of p<0.05. A total of 1264 proteins were detected, and of those 136 were differentially expressed with a false discovery rate of p<0.05. Significant changes in the abundance of transcripts and proteins were observed and these changes were coordinated for glycolysis, translation, and multiple biochemical responses to P deficiency. These data demonstrate that diatom P deficiency results in changes in cellular P allocation through polyphosphate production, increased P transport, a switch to utilization of dissolved organic P (DOP) through increased production of alkaline phosphatase metalloenzymes and a diesterase, and a remodeling of the cell surface through production of sulfolipids. Together, these findings reveal that T. pseudonana has evolved a sophisticated response to P deficiency involving multiple biochemical strategies that are likely critical to its ability to rapidly respond to variations in environmental P availability.
Project description:Diatoms, which are responsible for up to 40% of the 45 to 50 billion metric tons of organic carbon production each year in the sea, are particularly sensitive to Fe stress. Here we describe the transcriptional response of the pennate diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum to Fe limitation using a partial genome microarray based on EST and genome sequence data. Processes carried out by components rich in Fe, such as photosynthesis, mitochondrial electron transport and nitrate assimilation are down-regulated to cope with the reduced cellular iron quota. This retrenchment is compensated by nitrogen (N) and carbon (C) reallocation from protein and storage carbohydrate degradation, adaptations to chlorophyll biosynthesis and pigment metabolism, removal of excess electron s by mitochondrial alternative oxidase (AOX), augmented Fe-independent oxidative stress responses, and sensitized iron capture mechanisms. Keywords: Marine phytoplankton, pinnate diatom
Project description:Diatoms are responsible for ~40% of marine primary productivity1, fueling the oceanic carbon cycle and contributing to natural carbon sequestration in the deep ocean2. Diatoms rely on energetically expensive carbon concentrating mechanisms (CCMs) to fix carbon efficiently at modern levels of CO23–5. How diatoms may respond over the short and long-term to rising atmospheric CO2 remains an open question. Here we use nitrate-limited chemostats to show that the model diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana rapidly responds to increasing CO2 by differentially expressing gene clusters that regulate transcription and chromosome folding and subsequently reduces transcription of photosynthesis and respiration gene clusters under steady-state elevated CO2. These results suggest that exposure to elevated CO2 first causes a shift in regulation and then a metabolic rearrangement. Genes in one CO2-responsive cluster included CCM and photorespiration genes that share a putative cyclic-AMP responsive cis-regulatory sequence, implying these genes are co-regulated in response to CO2 with cAMP as an intermediate messenger. We verified cAMP-induced down-regulation of CCM gene δ-CA3 in nutrient-replete diatom cultures by inhibiting the hydrolysis of cAMP. These results indicate an important role for cAMP in down-regulating CCM and photorespiration genes under elevated CO2 and provide insights into mechanisms of diatom acclimation in response to climate change.