Category: Dinoflagellate genomics

Gambierdiscus spp. can produce the polyketide compound, ciguatoxin (CTX), and are hence responsible for ciguatera fish poisoning (CFP). Studying the molecular mechanism that regulates CTX production is crucial for understanding the environmental trigger of CTX as well as for better informing fishery management. Commonly, polyketide synthases are important for polyketide synthesis; however, no gene has been confirmatively assigned to CTX production. Here, suppression subtractive hybridization…

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Cryptic species in the parasitic Amoebophrya species complex revealed by a polyphasic approach.
Sci Rep. 2020 Feb 13;10(1):2531
Authors: Cai R, Kayal E, Alves-de-Souza C, Bigeard E, Corre E, Jeantho…

As critical primary producers and recyclers of organic matter, the diversity of marine protists has been extensively explored by high-throughput barcode sequencing. However, classification of short metabarcoding sequences into traditional taxonomic units is not trivial, especially for lineages mainly known by their genetic fingerprints. This is the case for the widespread Amoebophrya ceratii species complex, parasites of their dinoflagellate congeners. We used genetic and phenotypic characters,…

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Biosynthesis of Saxitoxin in Marine Dinoflagellates: An Omics Perspective.
Mar Drugs. 2020 Feb 05;18(2):
Authors: Akbar MA, Mohd Yusof NY, Tahir NI, Ahmad A, Usup G, Sahrani FK, Bunawan H
Ab…

Saxitoxin is an alkaloid neurotoxin originally isolated from the clam Saxidomus giganteus in 1957. This group of neurotoxins is produced by several species of freshwater cyanobacteria and marine dinoflagellates. The saxitoxin biosynthesis pathway was described for the first time in the 1980s and, since then, it was studied in more than seven cyanobacterial genera, comprising 26 genes that form a cluster ranging from 25.7 kb to 35 kb in sequence length. Due to the complexity of the genomic…

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N-Linked Surface Glycan Biosynthesis, Composition, Inhibition, and Function in Cnidarian-Dinoflagellate Symbiosis.
Microb Ecol. 2020 Jan 25;:
Authors: Tivey TR, Parkinson JE, Mandelare PE, Adpressa …

The success of symbioses between cnidarian hosts (e.g., corals and sea anemones) and micro-algal symbionts hinges on the molecular interactions that govern the establishment and maintenance of intracellular mutualisms. As a fundamental component of innate immunity, glycan-lectin interactions impact the onset of marine endosymbioses, but our understanding of the effects of cell surface glycome composition on symbiosis establishment remains limited. In this study, we examined the canonical…

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Genome Improvement and Core Gene Set Refinement of Fugacium kawagutii.
Microorganisms. 2020 Jan 11;8(1):
Authors: Li T, Yu L, Song B, Song Y, Li L, Lin X, Lin S
Abstract
Cataloging a…

Cataloging an accurate functional gene set for the Symbiodiniaceae species is crucial for addressing biological questions of dinoflagellate symbiosis with corals and other invertebrates. To improve the gene models of Fugacium kawagutii, we conducted high-throughput chromosome conformation capture (Hi-C) for the genome and Illumina combined with PacBio sequencing for the transcriptome to achieve a new genome assembly and gene prediction. A 0.937-Gbp assembly of F. kawagutii were obtained, with a…

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The role of chromatin dynamics under global warming response in the symbiotic coral model Aiptasia.
Commun Biol. 2019 Aug 02;2(1):282
Authors: Weizman E, Levy O
Abstract
Extreme weat…