Algae genome could aid medical, climate research

Betsy Read, a professor of molecular cell biology at CSUSM, examines a solution of Emiliania huxleyi. Read led an international team of researchers who sequenced a "pan genome" for the organisms. Photo courtesy of Cal State San Marcos.

A ubiquitous phytoplankton found in oceans around the world could hold the key to fields ranging from climatology to dentistry, since a team of scientists led by Cal State San Marcos researchers unlocked the genomes for 14 different strains of the algae.

Their findings, published last week in the journal Nature, decoded the DNA of related strains of the algae Emiliania huxleyi. Their study is one of only a handful to unravel the genomes of marine algae and the first ever to document a pan genome - a set of core genes shared by diverse algal varieties.

Its still very rare to have a whole genome sequence for any marine phytoplankton, said Sonya Dyhrman, a professor of microbial oceanography at Columbia University and a co-author of the study. Its absolutely unprecedented to have multiple strains of the same species sequenced.

While the different strains share 70 to 80 percent of their DNA, about 20 to 30 percent of their genes are unique to each strain. That diversity allows them to inhabit virtually all the worlds oceans except the polar seas, said lead author Betsy Read, a professor of molecular cell biology at CSUSM.

They have this tremendous ability to adapt, she said. This is why we can pull them from almost every bucket of water in the ocean.

Read released the findings in the journal Nature last week, in collaboration with CSUSM computer science professor Xiaoyu Zhang, Dyhrman and about two dozen co-authors from a far-flung network of institutions in the United States, Germany, England, France.

The findings, Dyhrman said, are as valuable to microbiology as decryption of the human genome has proven to medicine.

Any time you unlock that code, it gives you this Rosetta stone to understand how that organism works and how it interacts with its environment, she said.

The algae are the third most abundant phytoplankton, and are a key component of the ocean food chain, nourishing animals including crustaceans, shellfish and other filter feeders.

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Algae genome could aid medical, climate research