Scientists built a genetic toolkit revealing how diatoms sense carbon dioxide
Nam O, Grouneva I, Mackinder LCM
Crispr
Diatoms floating in every ocean teaspoon absorb roughly as much CO2 as all the world's rainforests combined, and tools like this one let scientists finally watch that process live inside the cell.
Tiny single-celled algae called diatoms are responsible for a huge chunk of the planet's carbon absorption, but editing their genes to understand how they work has been clunky and slow. Scientists created a streamlined genetic toolbox that lets researchers tag proteins with glowing markers and knock out genes in one step, using a single delivery package. With it, they discovered that a specific protein lights up brighter when carbon dioxide runs low, hinting at a direct role in how diatoms grab CO2 from seawater.
Key Findings
A single-episome Golden Gate toolkit enables 5 distinct genetic operations in T. pseudonana, including the first scarless endogenous fluorescent protein tagging reported for this species.
Knockout of Diatom Pyrenoid Component 1 (DPC1) did not disrupt pyrenoid structure, as confirmed by unaffected Rubisco small subunit localization.
Bestrophin-like protein BST2 localizes to the pyrenoid and shows increased fluorescence under low CO2 conditions, supporting a functional role in diatom carbon fixation.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Researchers built a flexible, single-delivery genetic toolkit for a marine microalga called Thalassiosira pseudonana, enabling scientists to tag proteins with fluorescent markers and edit genes simultaneously. Using it, they confirmed that a protein called BST2 lives at the cell's carbon-fixing hub and responds to low CO2, shedding light on how diatoms pull carbon dioxide from the ocean.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
A versatile tool for gene editing in the diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana.
Diatoms are major contributors to marine primary production and global CO2 fixation, with the centric diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana a powerful model for understanding biogeochemical processes inc...
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