Project description:Dinoflagellate blooms are natural phenomena that have drawn global attention due to their huge negative impacts on marine ecosystems, mariculture and human health. Although the understanding of dinoflagellate blooms has been significantly improved over the past half century, little is known about the underlying mechanisms sustaining the high biomass growth rate during the bloom period which is paradoxically characterized by low dissolved CO2 and inorganic nutrients. Here, we compared the metaproteomes of non-bloom, mid-bloom and late-bloom cells of a marine dinoflagellate Prorocentrum donghaiense in the coastal East China Sea, to understand the underlying mechanisms sustaining high biomass growth rate under the typically low CO2 and inorganic nutrient conditions.
Project description:Dinoflagellates are phytoplanktonic organisms found in both freshwater and marine habitats. They are often studied because related to harmful algal blooms responsible for impacts on ecosystem functioning, economic damages for aquaculture and fishery industries and/or deleterious impacts for human health. In addition they are also known to produce bioactive compounds, such as for the treatment of cancer or beneficial effects for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. The dinoflagellate Amphidinium sp. is a cosmopolitan dinoflagellate species known to produce both cytotoxic and beneficial compounds. However, several studies reported that environmental changes (e.g. nutrient starvation, UV radiation and ocean acidification) may alter this production. The aim of this study was to sequence the full transcriptome of the dinoflagellate Amphidinium carterae in both nitrogen- starved and -repleted culturing conditions (1) to evaluated its response to nitrogen starvation, (2) to look for possible polyketide synthases (PKSs), involved in the synthesis of various compounds, in this studied clone, (3) if present, to evaluate if nutrient starvation can influence PKS activity, (4) to test strain cytotoxicity on human cells and (5) to look for other possible enzymes/proteins of biotechnological interest.
