Project description:We constructed a tiling microarray, covering nearly all of the intergenic regions larger than 50 bp on both strands of the genome of the marine picocyanobacterium Synechococcus WH7803. We analyzed transcript levels from cultures grown under ecologically relevant stress conditions. The investigated stress conditions were cold stress, high light stress, phosphate depletion and iron depletion. We identified several previously unknown small RNAs, partially differentially expressed. The detected RNAs provide a starting point for further investigations on the acclimatisation to different stresses for Synechococcus WH7803.
Project description:We constructed a tiling microarray, covering nearly all of the intergenic regions larger than 50 bp on both strands of the genome of the marine picocyanobacterium Synechococcus WH7803. We analyzed transcript levels from cultures grown under ecologically relevant stress conditions. The investigated stress conditions were cold stress, high light stress, phosphate depletion and iron depletion. We identified several previously unknown small RNAs, partially differentially expressed. The detected RNAs provide a starting point for further investigations on the acclimatisation to different stresses for Synechococcus WH7803. For every applied growth condition the cultures were grown in triplicates as were the respective controls. Respective controls were treated the same as the stressed bacterial cultures in terms of centrifugation and / or dilution. Bacteria were harvested by rapid filtering and directly freezed by liquid nitrogen.
Project description:Proteins secreted by marine cyanobacterium Synechococcus under phosphorus stress is largely uncharacterized. This dataset characterizes the exoproteins for both an open ocean (WH8102) and coastal (WH5701) Synechococcus strain and were collected as part of the study "Dissolved organic phosphorus bond-class utilization by Synechococcus". Study Abstract: Dissolved organic phosphorus (DOP) contains compounds with phosphoester (P-O-C), phosphoanhydride (P-O-P), and phosphorus-carbon (P-C) bonds. Despite DOP’s importance as a nutritional source for marine microorganisms, the bioavailability of each bond-class to the widespread cyanobacterium Synechococcus remains largely unknown. This study evaluates bond-class specific DOP utilization by cultures of an open ocean and a coastal ocean Synechococcus strain. Both strains exhibited comparable growth rates when provided phosphate, short-chain and long-chain polyphosphate (P-O-P), adenosine 5’-triphosphate (P-O-C and P-O-P), and glucose-6-phosphate (P-O-C) as the phosphorus source. However, growth rates on phosphomonoester adenosine 5’-monophosphate (P-O-C) and phosphodiester bis(4-methylumbelliferyl) phosphate (C-O-P-O-C) varied between strains, and neither strain grew on selected phosphonates. Consistent with the growth measurements, both strains preferentially hydrolyzed 3-polyphosphate, followed by adenosine 5’-triphosphate, and then adenosine 5’-monophosphate. The strains’ exoproteome contained phosphorus hydrolases, which combined with enhanced cell-free hydrolysis of 3-polyphosphate and adenosine 5’-triphosphate under phosphate deficiency, suggests active mineralization of short-chain polyphosphate by Synechococcus’ exoproteins. Synechococcus alkaline phosphatases presented broad substrate specificities, including activity towards short-chain polyphosphate, with varying affinities between the two strains. Collectively, these findings underscore the potentially significant role of compounds with phosphoanhydride bonds in Synechococcus phosphorus nutrition, thereby expanding our understanding of microbially-mediated DOP cycling in marine ecosystems.
Project description:Deciphering the regulatory networks encoded in the genome of an organism represents one of the most interesting and challenging tasks in the post-genome sequencing era. As an example of this problem, we have predicted a detailed model for the nitrogen assimilation network in cyanobacterium Synechococcus sp. WH 8102 (WH8102) using a computational protocol based on comparative genomics analysis and mining experimental data from related organisms that are relatively well studied. This computational model is in excellent agreement with the microarray gene expression data collected under ammonium-rich versus nitrate-rich growth conditions, suggesting that our computational protocol is capable of predicting biological pathways/networks with high accuracy. We then refined the computational model using the microarray data, and proposed a new model for the nitrogen assimilation network in WH8102. An intriguing discovery from this study is that nitrogen assimilation affects the expression of many genes involved in photosynthesis, suggesting a tight coordination between nitrogen assimilation and photosynthesis processes. Moreover, for some of these genes, this coordination is probably mediated by NtcA through the canonical NtcA promoters in their regulatory regions.
Project description:Marine cyanobacteria are thought to be the most sensitive of the phytoplankton groups to copper toxicity, yet little is known of the transcriptional response of marine Synechococcus to copper shock. Global transcriptional response to two levels of copper shock was assayed in both a coastal and an open ocean strain of marine Synechococcus 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 organic carbon leakage in Synechococcus. The two strains additionally showed a reduction in photosynthetic gene transcripts. Contrastingly, the open ocean strain showed a typical stress response whereas the coastal strain exhibited a more specific oxidative or heavy metal type response. In addition, the coastal strain activated more regulatory elements and transporters, many of which are not conserved in other marine Synechococcus strains and may have been acquired by horizontal gene transfer. Thus, tolerance to copper shock in some marine Synechococcus may in part be a result of an increased ability to sense and respond in a more specialized manner.
Project description:Picocyanobacteria from the genus Synechococcus are ubiquitous in ocean waters. Their phylogenetic and genomic diversity suggests ecological niche differentiation, but the selective forces influencing this are not well defined. Marine picocyanobacteria are sensitive to Cu toxicity, so adaptations to this stress could represent a selective force within, and between, “species” also known as clades. We compared Cu stress responses in cultures and natural populations of marine Synechococcus from two co-occurring major mesotrophic clades (I and IV). Using custom microarrays and proteomics to characterize expression responses to Cu in the lab and field, we found evidence for a general stress regulon in marine Synechococcus. However, the two clades also exhibited distinct responses to copper. The Clade I representative induced expression of genomic island genes in cultures and Southern California Bight populations, while the Clade IV representative downregulated Fe-limitation proteins. Copper incubation experiments suggest that Clade IV populations may harbor stress-tolerant subgroups, and thus fitness tradeoffs may govern Cu-tolerant strain distributions. This work demonstrates that Synechococcus has distinct adaptive strategies to deal with Cu toxicity at both the clade and subclade level, implying that metal toxicity and stress response adaptations represent an important selective force for influencing diversity within marine Synechococcus populations.