ALBERT

Description: © The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Faktorova, D., Nisbet, R. E. R., Robledo, J. A. F., Casacuberta, E., Sudek, L., Allen, A. E., Ares, M., Jr., Areste, C., Balestreri, C., Barbrook, A. C., Beardslee, P., Bender, S., Booth, D. S., Bouget, F., Bowler, C., Breglia, S. A., Brownlee, C., Burger, G., Cerutti, H., Cesaroni, R., Chiurillo, M. A., Clemente, T., Coles, D. B., Collier, J. L., Cooney, E. C., Coyne, K., Docampo, R., Dupont, C. L., Edgcomb, V., Einarsson, E., Elustondo, P. A., Federici, F., Freire-Beneitez, V., Freyria, N. J., Fukuda, K., Garcia, P. A., Girguis, P. R., Gomaa, F., Gornik, S. G., Guo, J., Hampl, V., Hanawa, Y., Haro-Contreras, E. R., Hehenberger, E., Highfield, A., Hirakawa, Y., Hopes, A., Howe, C. J., Hu, I., Ibanez, J., Irwin, N. A. T., Ishii, Y., Janowicz, N. E., Jones, A. C., Kachale, A., Fujimura-Kamada, K., Kaur, B., Kaye, J. Z., Kazana, E., Keeling, P. J., King, N., Klobutcher, L. A., Lander, N., Lassadi, I., Li, Z., Lin, S., Lozano, J., Luan, F., Maruyama, S., Matute, T., Miceli, C., Minagawa, J., Moosburner, M., Najle, S. R., Nanjappa, D., Nimmo, I. C., Noble, L., Vanclova, A. M. G. N., Nowacki, M., Nunez, I., Pain, A., Piersanti, A., Pucciarelli, S., Pyrih, J., Rest, J. S., Rius, M., Robertson, D., Ruaud, A., Ruiz-Trillo, I., Sigg, M. A., Silver, P. A., Slamovits, C. H., Smith, G. J., Sprecher, B. N., Stern, R., Swart, E. C., Tsaousis, A. D., Tsypin, L., Turkewitz, A., Turnsek, J., Valach, M., Verge, V., von Dassow, P., von der Haar, T., Waller, R. F., Wang, L., Wen, X., Wheeler, G., Woods, A., Zhang, H., Mock, T., Worden, A. Z., & Lukes, J. Genetic tool development in marine protists: emerging model organisms for experimental cell biology. Nature Methods, 17, (2020): 481-494, doi:10.1038/s41592-020-0796-x.

Description: Diverse microbial ecosystems underpin life in the sea. Among these microbes are many unicellular eukaryotes that span the diversity of the eukaryotic tree of life. However, genetic tractability has been limited to a few species, which do not represent eukaryotic diversity or environmentally relevant taxa. Here, we report on the development of genetic tools in a range of protists primarily from marine environments. We present evidence for foreign DNA delivery and expression in 13 species never before transformed and for advancement of tools for eight other species, as well as potential reasons for why transformation of yet another 17 species tested was not achieved. Our resource in genetic manipulation will provide insights into the ancestral eukaryotic lifeforms, general eukaryote cell biology, protein diversification and the evolution of cellular pathways.

Description: We thank M. Salisbury and D. Lacono, C. Poirier, M. Hamilton, C. Eckmann, H. Igel, C. Yung and K. Hoadley for assistance; V.K. Nagarajan, M. Accerbi and P.J. Green who carried out Agrobacterium studies in Heterosigma akashiwo, and N. Kraeva, C. Bianchi and V. Yurchenko for the help with designing the p57-V5+NeoR construct. We are also grateful to the protocols.io team (L. Teytelman and A. Broellochs) for their support. This collaborative effort was supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation EMS Program of the Marine Microbiology Initiative (grant nos. GBMF4972 and 4972.01 to F.-Y.B.; GBMF4970 and 4970.01 to M.A. and A.Z.W.; GBMF3788 to A.Z.W.; GBMF 4968 and 4968.01 to H.C.; GBMF4984 to V.H.; GBMF4974 and 4974.01 to C. Brownlee; GBMF4964 to Y. Hirakawa; GBMF4961 to T. Mock; GBMF4958 to P.S.; GBMF4957 to A.T.; GBMF4960 to G.J.S.; GBMF4979 to K.C.; GBMF4982 and 4982.01 to J.L.C.; GBMF4964 to P.J.K.; GBMF4981 to P.v.D.; GBMF5006 to A.E.A.; GBMF4986 to C.M.; GBMF4962 to J.A.F.R.; GBMF4980 and 4980.01 to S.L.; GBMF 4977 and 4977.01 to R.F.W.; GBMF4962.01 to C.H.S.; GBMF4985 to J.M.; GBMF4976 and 4976.01 to C.H.; GBMF4963 and 4963.01 to V.E.; GBMF5007 to C.L.D.; GBMF4983 and 4983.01 to J.L.; GBMF4975 and 4975.01 to A.D.T.; GBMF4973 and 4973.01 to I.R.-T. and GBMF4965 to N.K.), by The Leverhulme Trust (RPG-2017-364) to T. Mock and A. Hopes, and by ERD funds (16_019/0000759) from the Czech Ministry of Education to J.L.

Description: © The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Zang, Z., Xue, Z. G., Xu, K., Bentley, S. J., Chen, Q., D'Sa, E. J., Zhang, L., & Ou, Y. The role of sediment-induced light attenuation on primary production during Hurricane Gustav (2008). Biogeosciences, 17(20), (2020): 5043-5055, doi:10.5194/bg-17-5043-2020.

Description: We introduced a sediment-induced light attenuation algorithm into a biogeochemical model of the Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere–Wave–Sediment Transport (COAWST) modeling system. A fully coupled ocean–atmospheric–sediment–biogeochemical simulation was carried out to assess the impact of sediment-induced light attenuation on primary production in the northern Gulf of Mexico during the passage of Hurricane Gustav in 2008. When compared with model results without sediment-induced light attenuation, our new model showed a better agreement with satellite data on both the magnitude of nearshore chlorophyll concentration and the spatial distribution of offshore bloom. When Hurricane Gustav approached, resuspended sediment shifted the inner shelf ecosystem from a nutrient-limited one to a light-limited one. Only 1 week after Hurricane Gustav's landfall, accumulated nutrients and a favorable optical environment induced a posthurricane algal bloom in the top 20 m of the water column, while the productivity in the lower water column was still light-limited due to slow-settling sediment. Corresponding with the elevated offshore NO3 flux (38.71 mmol N m−1 s−1) and decreased chlorophyll flux (43.10 mg m−1 s−1), the outer shelf posthurricane bloom should have resulted from the cross-shelf nutrient supply instead of the lateral dispersed chlorophyll. Sensitivity tests indicated that sediment light attenuation efficiency affected primary production when sediment concentration was moderately high. Model uncertainties due to colored dissolved organic matter and parameterization of sediment-induced light attenuation are also discussed.

Description: This research has been supported by the National Science Foundation (grant nos. CCF-1856359, EnvS-1903340, OCE-1635837 and EAR-1427389), NASA (grant no. NNH17ZHA002C), the Louisiana Board of Regents (grant no. NASA/LEQSF(2018-20)-Phase3-11) and the LSU Foundation Billy and Ann Harrison Endowment for Sedimentary Geology.

Description: © The Author(s), 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Albertin, C. B., Medina-Ruiz, S., Mitros, T., Schmidbaur, H., Sanchez, G., Wang, Z. Y., Grimwood, J., Rosenthal, J. J. C., Ragsdale, C. W., Simakov, O., & Rokhsar, D. S. Genome and transcriptome mechanisms driving cephalopod evolution. Nature Communications, 13(1), (2022): 2427, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-29748-w.

Description: Cephalopods are known for their large nervous systems, complex behaviors and morphological innovations. To investigate the genomic underpinnings of these features, we assembled the chromosomes of the Boston market squid, Doryteuthis (Loligo) pealeii, and the California two-spot octopus, Octopus bimaculoides, and compared them with those of the Hawaiian bobtail squid, Euprymna scolopes. The genomes of the soft-bodied (coleoid) cephalopods are highly rearranged relative to other extant molluscs, indicating an intense, early burst of genome restructuring. The coleoid genomes feature multi-megabase, tandem arrays of genes associated with brain development and cephalopod-specific innovations. We find that a known coleoid hallmark, extensive A-to-I mRNA editing, displays two fundamentally distinct patterns: one exclusive to the nervous system and concentrated in genic sequences, the other widespread and directed toward repetitive elements. We conclude that coleoid novelty is mediated in part by substantial genome reorganization, gene family expansion, and tissue-dependent mRNA editing.

Description: We thank the Marine Resources Center and the Cephalopod program at the Marine Biological Laboratory for supplying D. pealeii, R. Hanlon for the image in Fig. 1a, R. Hanlon and S. Senft for help with tissue dissection, Dr. Chuck Winkler for supplying O. bimaculoides, B. Burford and W. Gilly for assistance with D. opalescens collection, and the Vienna Zoo (Tiergarten Schönbrunn), particularly R. Halbauer, A. Weissenbacher, and the aquarist team for E. scolopes husbandry. Computation was done using the Life Science Cluster at the University of Vienna. This project began with generous funding from the Grass Foundation, administered by the MBL through J.J.R. It was also supported by Austrian Science fund FWF (P30686-B29) to H.S. and O.S., the Whitman Center Early Career Fellowship to O.S., the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Molecular Genetics Unit, Chan-Zuckerberg BioHub, and the Marthella Foskett Brown Chair in Computational Biology to D.S.R, NSF grant (IOS-1354898) to C.W.R, and the Hibbitt Early Career Fellowship to C.B.A. Sequencing at the University of Chicago Functional Genomics Facility was partially supported by the NIH (5UL1TR002389-02 and UL1 TR000430).

Description: Marine protists abound, but are challenging to study, and their interactions with other microbes in nature remain largely unknown. We captured wild predatory protists (choanoflagellates) and discovered a divergent, obligately co-associated bacterial group that lives by extracting resources from these predators.