@article {4766, title = {Cyclic electron flow (CEF) and ascorbate pathway activity provide constitutive photoprotection for the photopsychrophile, Chlamydomonas sp. UWO 241~(renamed Chlamydomonas priscuii)}, journal = {Photosynthesis Research}, volume = {151}, year = {2022}, month = {03/2022}, pages = {235 - 250}, abstract = {

Under environmental stress, plants and algae employ a variety of strategies to protect the photosynthetic apparatus and maintain photostasis. To date, most studies on stress acclimation have focused on model organisms which possess limited to no tolerance to stressful extremes. We studied the ability of the Antarctic alga Chlamydomonas sp. UWO 241 (UWO 241) to acclimate to low temperature, high salinity or high light. UWO 241 maintained robust growth and photosynthetic activity at levels of temperature (2 \°C) and salinity (700 mM NaCl) which were nonpermissive for a mesophilic sister species, Chlamydomonas raudensis SAG 49.72 (SAG 49.72). Acclimation in the mesophile involved classic mechanisms, including downregulation of light harvesting and shifts in excitation energy between photosystem I and II. In contrast, UWO 241 exhibited high rates of PSI-driven cyclic electron flow (CEF) and a larger capacity for nonphotochemical quenching (NPQ). Furthermore, UWO 241 exhibited constitutively high activity of two key ascorbate cycle enzymes, ascorbate peroxidase and glutathione reductase and maintained a large ascorbate pool. These results matched the ability of the psychrophile to maintain low ROS under short-term photoinhibition conditions. We conclude that tight control over photostasis and ROS levels are essential for photosynthetic life to flourish in a native habitat of permanent photooxidative stress. We propose to rename this organism Chlamydomonas priscuii.

}, keywords = {LTER-MCM, Antarctica, ascorbate, Cyclic electron flow, Photosystem I, Psychrophile, ROS}, doi = {10.1007/s11120-021-00877-5}, url = {https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11120-021-00877-5}, author = {Stahl-Rommel, Sarah and Kalra, Isha and D{\textquoteright}Silva, Susanna and Hahn, Mark M. and Popson, Devon and Cvetkovska, Marina and Rachael M. Morgan-Kiss} } @article {4419, title = {Chlamydomonas sp. UWO 241 exhibits high cyclic electron flow and rewired metabolism under high salinity}, journal = {Plant Physiology}, year = {2020}, month = {03/2020}, abstract = {

The Antarctic green alga Chlamydomonas sp. UWO 241 (UWO 241) is adapted to permanent low temperatures, hypersalinity, and extreme shade. one of the most striking phenotypes of UWO 241 is an altered photosystem I (PSI) organization and constitutive PSI cyclic electron flow (CEF). To date, little attention has been paid to CEF during long-term stress acclimation, and the consequences of sustained CEF in UWO 241 are not known. In this study, we combined photobiology, proteomics, and metabolomics to understand the underlying role of sustained CEF in high salinity stress acclimation. High salt-grown UWO 241 exhibited increased thylakoid proton motive flux and an increased capacity for non-photochemical quenching. Under high salt, a significant proportion of the upregulated enzymes were associated with the Calvin Benson Bassham Cycle, carbon storage metabolism, and protein translation. Two key enzymes of the Shikimate pathway, DAHP synthase and chorismate synthase, were also upregulated, as well as indole-3-glycerol phosphate synthase, an enzyme involved in the biosynthesis of L-tryptophan and indole acetic acid. In addition, several compatible solutes (glycerol, proline, and sucrose) accumulated to high levels in high salt-grown UWO 241 cultures. We suggest that UWO 241 maintains constitutively high CEF through the associated PSI-cytochrome b6f supercomplex to support robust growth and strong photosynthetic capacity under a constant growth regime of low temperatures and high salinity.

}, keywords = {LTER-MCM}, doi = {10.1104/pp.19.01280}, url = {http://www.plantphysiol.org/content/early/2020/04/03/pp.19.01280}, author = {Kalra, Isha and Wang, Xin and Cvetkovska, Marina and Jeong, Jooyeon and McHargue, William and Zhang, Ru and H{\"u}ner, Norman and Yuan, Joshua S. and Rachael M. Morgan-Kiss} } @article {4332, title = {Community response of microbial primary producers to salinity is primarily driven by nutrients in lakes}, journal = {Science of the Total Environment}, volume = {696}, year = {2019}, month = {12/2019}, pages = {134001}, abstract = {

Higher microbial diversity was frequently observed in saline than fresh waters, but the underlying mechanisms remains unknown, particularly in microbial primary producers (MPP). MPP abundance and activity are notably constrained by high salinity, but facilitated by high nutrients. It remains to be ascertained whether and how nutrients regulate the salinity constraints on MPP abundance and community structure. Here we investigated the impact of nutrients on salinity constraints on MPP abundance and diversity in undisturbed lakes with a wide salinity range on the Tibetan Plateau. MPP community was explored using quantitative PCR, terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism and sequencing of cloning libraries targeting form IC cbbL gene. The MPP community structure was sorted by salinity into freshwater (salinity\<1\‰), saline (1\‰ \< salinity\<29\‰) and hypersaline (salinity\>29\‰) lakes. Furthermore, while MPP abundance, diversity and richness were significantly constrained with increasing salinity, these constraints were mitigated by enhancing total organic carbon (TOC) and total nitrogen (TN) contents in freshwater and saline lakes. In contrast, the MPP diversity increased significantly with the salinity in hypersaline lakes, due to the mitigation of enhancing TOC and TN contents and salt-tolerant MPP taxa. The mitigating effect of nutrients was more pronounced in saline than in freshwater and hypersaline lakes. The MPP compositions varied along salinity, with Betaproteobacteria dominating both the freshwater and saline lakes and Gammaproteobacteria dominating the hypersaline lakes. We concluded that high nutrients could mitigate the salinity constraining effects on MPP abundance, community richness and diversity. Our findings offer a novel insight into the salinity effects on primary producers and highlight the interactive effects of salinity and nutrients on MPP in lakes. These findings can be used as a baseline to illuminate the effects of increased anthropogenic activities altering nutrient dynamics on the global hydrological cycle and the subsequent responses thereof by MPP communities.

}, keywords = {LTER-MCM, cbbL, lake waters, microbial primary producers, nutrient, salinity}, doi = {10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.134001}, url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969719339786}, author = {Yue, Linyan and Weidong Kong and Ji, Mukan and Liu, Jinbo and Rachael M. Morgan-Kiss} } @article {1056, title = {Ciliate diversity, community structure and novel taxa in lakes of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica}, journal = {Biological Bulleting}, volume = {227}, year = {2014}, month = {10/2014}, pages = {175-190}, chapter = {175}, abstract = {We report an in-depth survey of next-generation DNA sequencing of ciliate diversity and community structure in two permanently ice-covered McMurdo Dry Valley lakes during the austral summer and autumn (November 2007 and March 2008). We tested hypotheses on the relationship between species richness and environmental conditions including environmental extremes, nutrient status, and day length. On the basis of the unique environment that exists in these high-latitude lakes, we expected that novel taxa would be present. Alpha diversity analyses showed that extreme conditions-that is, high salinity, low oxygen, and extreme changes in day length-did not impact ciliate richness; however, ciliate richness was 30\% higher in samples with higher dissolved organic matter. Beta diversity analyses revealed that ciliate communities clustered by dissolved oxygen, depth, and salinity, but not by season (i.e., day length). The permutational analysis of variance test indicated that depth, dissolved oxygen, and salinity had significant influences on the ciliate community for the abundance matrices of resampled data, while lake and season were not significant. This result suggests that the vertical trends in dissolved oxygen concentration and salinity may play a critical role in structuring ciliate communities. A PCR-based strategy capitalizing on divergent eukaryotic V9 hypervariable region ribosomal RNA gene targets unveiled two new genera in these lakes. A novel taxon belonging to an unknown class most closely related to Cryptocaryon irritans was also inferred from separate gene phylogenies.}, keywords = {LTER-MCM}, author = {Yuan, Xu and Trista J. Vick-Majors and Rachael M. Morgan-Kiss and John C. Priscu and Linda A. Amaral-Zettler} }