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Journals
Microorganisms
Special Issues
Research on Biology of Dinoflagellates
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Research on Biology of Dinoflagellates

A special issue of Microorganisms (ISSN 2076-2607). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Microbiology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 May 2024 | Viewed by 927

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Marco Villanueva

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Unidad Académica de Sistemas Arrecifales, Instituto de Ciencias del Mar y Limnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM, Prolongación Avenida Niños Héroes S/N, Puerto Morelos, Quintana Roo 77580, Mexico
Interests: dinoflagellate; signal-transduction; proteins; cytoskeleton
Dr. Tania Islas-Flores

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Instituto de Ciencias del Mar y Limnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Puerto Morelos 77580, Mexico
Interests: environmental microbiology; dinoflagellate
Dr. Estefanía Morales-Ruiz

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Ocean Sciences and Limnology, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Puerto Morelos, Mexico
Interests: environmental microbiology; dinoflagellate

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Dinoflagellates are key players in both freshwater and marine ecosystems, as they are one of the main microorganisms in the planktonic environment. They contribute an important fraction of the ocean’s primary production and have become a spotlight in light of the Anthropocene and ocean global warming as some species are key players in coral symbiosis and thus critical for coral reef survival. Yet, other species can cause the formation of harmful algal blooms. Furthermore, dinoflagellates have many unusual cellular features, including a large-size nuclear genome and chromosomes that remain condensed throughout the cell cycle without histones, chloroplasts that are derived from a secondary endosymbiosis, and an ability to synthesize a wide range of toxins. 

For this Special Issue of Microorganisms, we invite you to send contributions concerning any aspect of dinoflagellate biology examined using biochemistry, cell and molecular biology, genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics or metabolomics.

Prof. Dr. Marco Villanueva
Dr. Tania Islas-Flores
Dr. Estefanía Morales-Ruiz
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Microorganisms is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • dinoflagellate
  • molecular biology
  • genomics
  • transcriptomics
  • proteomics
  • metabolomic

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

19 pages, 6279 KiB  
Article
Dinoflagellate Proton-Pump Rhodopsin Genes in Long Island Sound: Diversity and Spatiotemporal Distribution
by Huan Zhang, Kelly J. Nulick, Zair Burris, Melissa Pierce, Minglei Ma and Senjie Lin
Microorganisms 2024, 12(3), 628; https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms12030628 - 21 Mar 2024
Viewed by 649
Abstract
Microbial proton-pump rhodopsin (PPR)-based phototrophy, a light-harvesting mechanism different from chlorophyll-based photosystems, may contribute significantly to solar energy entry into the marine ecosystem. PPR transforms solar energy into cellular energy that is used for various metabolic processes in the cells or flagellar movement. [...] Read more.
Microbial proton-pump rhodopsin (PPR)-based phototrophy, a light-harvesting mechanism different from chlorophyll-based photosystems, may contribute significantly to solar energy entry into the marine ecosystem. PPR transforms solar energy into cellular energy that is used for various metabolic processes in the cells or flagellar movement. Although rhodopsins or their encoding genes have been documented in a wide phylogenetic range of cultured dinoflagellates, information is limited about how widespread and how spatiotemporally dynamical dinoflagellate PPR (DiPPR) are in natural marine ecosystems. In this study, we investigated DiPPR in Long Island Sound (LIS), a temperate estuary of the Atlantic Ocean between Connecticut and Long Island, New York, USA. We isolated six novel full-length dinoflagellate proton-pump rhodopsin cDNAs, expanding the DiPPR database that is crucial to PPR research. Based on these new sequences and existing sequences of DiPPR, we designed primers and conducted quantitative PCR and sequencing to determine the abundance and diversity of DiPPR genes spatially and temporally throughout a year in the water samples collected from LIS. DiPPR genes were found year-round and throughout LIS but with higher abundances in the eutrophic Western Sound and in April and July. The gene diversity data suggest that there are at least five distinct rhodopsin-harboring groups of dinoflagellates throughout the year. The abundance of DiPPR genes, measured as copy number per mL of seawater, appeared not to be influenced by water temperature or nitrogen nutrient concentration but exhibited weak negative correlations with orthophosphate concentration and salinity and a positive correlation with the abundance of DiPPR-harboring dinoflagellates. This first quantitative profiling of PPR in natural plankton reveals the prevalence and dynamics of this plastid-independent photoenergy harvesting mechanism in a temperate estuary and provides efficient DiPPR primers potentially useful for future research. Furthermore, this study shed light on the potential role of DiPPR in phosphor nutrition and dinoflagellate population, which warrants further studies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research on Biology of Dinoflagellates)
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