Category Archives: Transhuman News

Washington, June 13 (ANI): A team of Spanish researchers, coordinated by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), has begun sequencing the genome of the global deep ocean.

They are using more than 2,000 samples of microorganisms collected in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans during the Malaspina Expedition. This collection of marine microbial genomic, the first in the world on a global scale, will provide new clues about a reservoir of biodiversity yet to explore, considering that it could imply the discovery of tens of millions of new genes in the coming years.

The works of sequencing (framed in the Malaspinomics project) focus on the viruses, bacteria and protists that inhabit the ocean to 4,000 meters deep.

Most of the biomass of marine organisms is composed of microorganism. Of these, a 72 percent inhabit the dark ocean, from 200 meters deep. However, so far, the DNA or RNA sequencing had been almost exclusively limited to the ocean surface waters.

Malaspinomics preliminary results reveal a wealth of unknown species of microorganisms in the deep ocean, characterized by an intense biological activity. Specifically, 60 percent of the bacterial species of the deep ocean detected by massive sequencing techniques are unknown.

Carlos Duarte, CSIC researcher and coordinator of Malaspina Expedition, asserted: "Malaspinomics means a leap forward because, for the first time, we are analyzing samples from the deep ocean, covering the great oceans. The new protocols of sequencing and analysis allow us to extract quite more information than in previous studies, which were limited to specific regions or surface waters, to an unprecedented level of resolution".

Researchers have already detected some bacteria, which are capable of degrading highly toxic compounds that have gradually gathered in the seabed.

Analysis are being conducted by a team that includes researchers from the Institute of Marine Sciences (CSIC), the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies -joint centre of CSIC and the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB)- and the National Genome Analysis Centre of Barcelona (CNAG).

They also count on the collaboration of MareNostrum -National Supercomputing Centre (BSC) in Barcelona-, the Joint Genome Institute (USA) and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (Germany). (ANI)

Originally posted here:
Genome of global deep ocean being sequenced

June 13, 2013

Image Caption: Emiliania huxleyi's shapes are as varied as the ocean environments it lives in. Credit: Nature

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports Your Universe Online

An international team of researchers has sequenced the genome of Emiliania huxleyi, a species of single-celled photosynthetic marine algae that they say is responsible for removing carbon dioxide from the air, supplying the oxygen we breath, and even forming the basis of marine food chains.

The results of their work has just been published in the journal Nature and helps explain the tremendous adaptive potential and global distribution of this algae, which is smaller than a speck of dust and contains a shield of thin calcified platelets resembling the outside of a soccer ball.

A team of 75 researchers from a dozen different countries spent seven years mapping the genome, and found a set of core genes that have mixed with a separate set of variable genes. The authors reported that genetic diversity allows E. huxleyi (Ehux for short) to adapt to different environments, as part of its gene pool is dependent upon its geographic location and living conditions. It is the first algae in which scientists have detected this unique characteristic.

The Ehux genome is incredibly variable, said study co-author Dr. Uwe John and biologist with the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). For example, if the genetic information of two humans is compared, an agreement of about 99 per cent is found. However, if, for example, we take two Ehux strains from different ocean regions, we find a degree of similarity of only 70 or 80 per cent. The rest of the genome differs.

This means that all of the algae possess a certain basic set of genes, the core genome, which is supplemented by different genes, i.e. is interchangeable to a certain extent, depending on the habitat of the algae, he continued. In the scientific world, we call this phenomenon pan-genome, which was only known from bacteria until we conducted our study. We have now demonstrated the pan-genome in a calcified alga for the first time.

Dr. John and colleagues from the Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) sequenced the Ehux genome and compared it with the genetic information from other algal isolates, reporting their results in the June 12 edition of Nature. The strain sequenced by the researchers was isolated from the South Pacific and is the first reference genome for coccolithophores.

The project wound up taking the scientists longer to complete than originally predicted because of the complexity and size of the Ehux genome. They originally believed that it was an estimated 30 million bases, but the genome wound up being more than four times that size approximately 141 million bases. Sequencing efforts of Ehux, which is part of the third most abundant group of phytoplankton, was first proposed by researchers back in 2002.

See the rest here:
Bizarre Ehux Algae Adapts To Environment With Variable Genome