Favouritism and secret crosstalk in diatom-bacteria relations
Willem
1
Stock ,
Frederik De
1
Boever ,
Michail Syrpas², Anne Willems³, Sven Mangelinckx², Marleen De
4
1
1
Troch , Wim Vyverman and Koen Sabbe
1 Laboratory
of Protistology and Aquatic Ecology, Department of Biology, Ghent University, Krijgslaan 281 – S8, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium
2 SynBioC, Department of Sustainable Organic Chemistry and Technology, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University
3 Laboratory of Microbiology (LM-UGent), Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, Ghent University
4 Marine Biology, Department of Biology, Ghent University
E-mail: Willem.Stock@Ugent.be
Diatoms are the most successful group of marine eukaryotic microalgae: they
are responsible for one fifth of the global oxygen production. Their associated
bacteria could be one of the reasons behind their enormous success.
Diatom-associated bacteria: identifying the important
groups with next-generation sequencing (16S amplicon
sequencing)
The larger the font-size, the
more common the bacteria are
in our diatom cultures
Why is Sulfitobacter
so common?
What are the recognition
mechanisms between diatoms
and bacteria ?
Metabolite profiling
Cylindrotheca, our model organism.
A common diatom in coastal waters worldwide.
Effect of the bacteria on the diatoms:
Co-culture experiments monitoring
diatom growth
0.5
0.35
Growth-enhancing bacteria:
- Maribacter sp.
- Celeribacter sp.
No bacteria
0.3
Bacteria with no effect on growth
0.45
Biomass (F0)
0.4
0.25
0.2
Growth-inhibiting bacteria:
- Sulfitobacter sp.
- Loktanella sp.
…
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
0
1
2
3
Time (Days)
4
5
6
What do the
bacteria do to
the diatoms ?