Projektbeschreibung
Auf den Spuren eines möglichen endosymbiotischen Evolutionsgeschehens
Plastiden, einschließlich Chloroplasten, sind photosynthetische Organellen in eukaryotischen Organismen. Chloroplasten waren ursprünglich Cyanobakterien, die von Eukaryoten in einer symbiotischen Beziehung (Endosymbiose) aufgenommen wurden. Mit Unterstützung der Marie-Skłodowska-Curie-Maßnahmen soll im Rahmen des Projekts UCYN2PLAST die Hypothese untersucht werden, dass wir die evolutionären Vorbereitungen für ein ähnliches Internalisierungsereignis beobachten. Diesmal könnte der Photosynthetisierer – eine einzellige eukaryotische Alge – der Internalisierer sein, der das stickstofffixierende Cyanobakterium aufnimmt, das seinen dringend benötigten Stickstoff im Austausch gegen die organischen Stoffe der Alge liefert. Das Projektteam wird die Hypothese mithilfe der Metatranskriptomanalyse und der Elektronenmikroskopie in Kombination mit molekularen Sonden und quantitativen Isotopentechniken an Meeresproben und in Inkubationsexperimenten mit Meerwasser testen.
Ziel
Symbioses are evident sources of innovation in nature, critical for the evolution of plastids and the success of eukaryotes on Earth. The mechanisms promoting such relationships, however, are difficult to identify, especially between single-celled organisms, and remain largely unknown. A widespread symbiosis was recently discovered in the ocean between an unicellular cyanobacterium (UCYN-A) and single-celled eukaryotic algae (prymnesiophyte). UCYN-A lacks typical cyanobacterial features such as the capacity to perform oxygenic photosynthesis, CO2 fixation or the tricarboxylic acid cycle, and must thus rely on the supply of organic matter from the algal host. In turn, UCYN-A shows a dramatic genome reduction with a high specialization in nitrogen fixation, providing fixed nitrogen to the alga. Given the importance of nitrogen for the algal productivity, it has been hypothesized that UCYN-A could eventually give rise to a nitrogen-fixing plastid in a process analogous to the origin of chloroplasts. This project aims to study the UCYN-A symbiosis both from an evolutionary and a functional point of view: First, the identification and characterization of new associations from marine samples at a global scale through molecular techniques will allow a deep comparison of closely-related symbiotic lineages that will help to understand the evolutionary underpinnings of this symbiosis. Second, nutrient incubation experiments of seawater samples over diel cycles will be performed to identify potential factors regulating the carbon and nitrogen exchange between partners to gain knowledge on the host-symbiont coupling mechanisms. For this purpose, metatranscriptomic analysis and electron microscopy combined with molecular probes and quantitative isotopic techniques (FISH-nanoSIMS) will be applied. Elucidating the mechanisms underlying this unusual nitrogen fixing symbiosis will provide valuable insight into previously unknown processes explaining the evolution of plastids
Wissenschaftliches Gebiet
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesmicrobiologyphycology
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesopticsmicroscopyelectron microscopy
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbiological behavioural sciencesethologybiological interactions
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesgeneticsgenomes
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbotany
Schlüsselbegriffe
Programm/Programme
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Aufforderung zur Vorschlagseinreichung
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MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Koordinator
75006 Paris
Frankreich