Journal
NATURE MICROBIOLOGY
Volume 2, Issue 1, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/nmicrobiol.2016.214
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Funding
- Simons Foundation [329108]
- NSF Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education (C-MORE, DBI) [0424599]
- Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship within 7th European Community Framework Programme
- Swedish Research Council [VR 637-2013-7502]
- Div Of Biological Infrastructure
- Direct For Biological Sciences [0424599] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Nitrogen fixation - the reduction of dinitrogen (N-2) gas to biologically available nitrogen (N) - is an important source of N for terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. In terrestrial environments, N-2-fixing symbioses involve multicellular plants, but in the marine environment these symbioses occur with unicellular planktonic algae. An unusual symbiosis between an uncultivated unicellular cyanobacterium (UCYN-A) and a haptophyte picoplankton alga was recently discovered in oligotrophic oceans. UCYN-A has a highly reduced genome, and exchanges fixed N for fixed carbon with its host. This symbiosis bears some resemblance to symbioses found in freshwater ecosystems. UCYN-A shares many core genes with the 'spheroid bodies' of Epithemia turgida and the endosymbionts of the amoeba Paulinella chromatophora. UCYN-A is widely distributed, and has diversified into a number of sublineages that could be ecotypes. Many questions remain regarding the physical and genetic mechanisms of the association, but UCYN-A is an intriguing model for contemplating the evolution of N-2-fixing organelles.
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