Author's posts
Jul 14
Development of a free radical scavenging bacterial consortium to mitigate oxidative stress in cnidarians
Corals are colonized by symbiotic microorganisms that profoundly influence the animal’s health. One noted symbiont is a single-celled alga (in the dinoflagellate family Symbiodiniaceae), which provides the coral with most of its fixed carbon. Thermal stress increases the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) by Symbiodiniaceae during photosynthesis. ROS can both damage the algal symbiont’s photosynthetic machinery and inhibit its repair, causing a positive feedback loop for the toxic…
Jul 07
Correction to: A multi-OMIC characterisation of biodegradation and microbial community succession within the PET plastisphere
Microbiome. 2021 Jul 6;9(1):155. doi: 10.1186/s40168-021-01120-y. NO ABSTRACT PMID:34229759 | DOI:10.1186/s40168-021-01120-y
Jun 22
A multi-OMIC characterisation of biodegradation and microbial community succession within the PET plastisphere
Microbiome. 2021 Jun 21;9(1):141. doi: 10.1186/s40168-021-01054-5. ABSTRACT BACKGROUND: Plastics now pollute marine environments across the globe. On entering these environments, plastics are rapidly colonised by a diverse community of microorganisms termed the plastisphere. Members of the plastisphere have a myriad of diverse functions typically found in any biofilm but, additionally, a number of marine plastisphere …
Jun 21
Description of the Marine Predator Sericomyxa perlucida gen. et sp. nov., a Cultivated Representative of the Deepest Branching Lineage of Vampyrellid Amoebae (Vampyrellida, Rhizaria)
J Eukaryot Microbiol. 2021 Jun 21:e12864. doi: 10.1111/jeu.12864. Online ahead of print. ABSTRACT The vampyrellids (Vampyrellida, Rhizaria) are an order of naked amoebae of considerable genetic diversity. Three families have been well defined (Vampyrellidae, Leptophryidae, Placopodidae), but most vampyrellid lineages detected by environmental sequencing are poorly known or completely uncharacterised. In the brackish sediment of …
Jun 10
The role of purifying selection in the origin and maintenance of complex function
Stud Hist Philos Sci. 2021 Apr 11;87:125-135. doi: 10.1016/j.shpsa.2021.03.005. Online ahead of print. ABSTRACT Fitness contribution alone should not be the criterion of ‘function’ in molecular biology and genomics. Disagreement over the use of ‘function’ in molecular biology and genomics is still with us, almost eight years after publicity surrounding the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements …
Jun 10
‘Species’ without species
Stud Hist Philos Sci. 2021 Apr 1;87:72-80. doi: 10.1016/j.shpsa.2021.03.006. Online ahead of print. ABSTRACT Biological science uses multiple species concepts. Order can be brought to this diversity if we recognize two key features. First, any given species concept is likely to have a patchwork structure, generated by repeated application of the concept to new domains. …
Jun 05
q-PCR-based assay for the toxic dinoflagellate Karenia selliformis monitoring along the Tunisian coasts
Karenia selliformis is a marine dinoflagellate responsible for fish-kill events. Its presence has been reported along the Tunisian coasts (south-eastern Mediterranean Sea) since the 1990s. In the present study, a quantitative-PCR assay, based on the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) molecular marker, was developed to detect and quantify K. selliformis in environmental bivalve mollusk samples and in seawater samples. The assay was optimized, and its specificity was confirmed using…
May 28
Gamma4: a genetically versatile Gammaproteobacterial nifH phylotype that is widely distributed in the North Pacific Ocean
Despite the increasing reports of non-cyanobacterial diazotrophs (NCDs) in pelagic waters, only one NCD (GammaA) has been relatively well described, whose genome and physiology are still unclear. Here we present a comprehensive analysis of the biogeography and ecophysiology of a widely distributed NCD, Gamma4. Gamma4 was the most abundant Gammaproteobacterial NCD along transects across the subtropical North Pacific. Using quantitative PCR, Gamma4 was detectable throughout the surface waters of…
May 28
Gamma4: a genetically versatile Gammaproteobacterial nifH phylotype that is widely distributed in the North Pacific Ocean
Despite the increasing reports of non-cyanobacterial diazotrophs (NCDs) in pelagic waters, only one NCD (GammaA) has been relatively well described, whose genome and physiology are still unclear. Here we present a comprehensive analysis of the biogeography and ecophysiology of a widely distributed NCD, Gamma4. Gamma4 was the most abundant Gammaproteobacterial NCD along transects across the subtropical North Pacific. Using quantitative PCR, Gamma4 was detectable throughout the surface waters of…
May 25
Re-examination of two diatom reference genomes using long-read sequencing
BMC Genomics. 2021 May 24;22(1):379. doi: 10.1186/s12864-021-07666-3. ABSTRACT BACKGROUND: The marine diatoms Thalassiosira pseudonana and Phaeodactylum tricornutum are valuable model organisms for exploring the evolution, diversity and ecology of this important algal group. Their reference genomes, published in 2004 and 2008, respectively, were the product of traditional Sanger sequencing. In the case of T. pseudonana, …
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