The partnerships, or symbioses, between diatom hosts and cyanobacteria are widespread in the tropical and subtropical oceans. Many populate low nutrient waters where the heterocystous cyanobacteria fix N2 and provide reduced nitrogen (N) to the host. These types of symbioses are believed to be important in the global ocean biogeochemical cycle of N and carbon (C). The cyanobacteria morphology, cellular locations differ as well as genome size and content. The genome size and content are related to the cellular location: internal symbionts have smaller more eroded genomes, while external symbionts have larger genomes more similar to free-living cyanobacteria. Based on previously identified characteristics the aim of this report is to classify taxonomically, unidentified environmental metagenomic assembled genomes (MAGs) to the heterocystous symbionts of diatoms: Richelia and Calothrix. A select number of targeted gene sequences will be compared. MAGs and four draft genomes of Richelia and Calothrix were collected from public repositories (GTDB, NCBI and Tara project) and an initial comparison of GC-content and genome size was made. Based on this comparison, seven of the MAGs were determined as similar as the draft genomes of the known symbionts. After, a heatmap was created based on 27 targeted genes, some of which are highly conserved, to further characterize the phylogeny of the MAGs (Appendix 2). Results from the GC-content and genome size graph and the heatmap indicated similar trends which could connect one of the MAGs being most similar to the RintRC01 draft genome whereas the other five MAGs resembled the RintHH01 draft genome. Based on these results, conclusions can be drawn that the unknown MAGs are likely derived from symbionts of diatoms and could also possess similar characteristics, such as their cellular location, function and role in the N and C cycles.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-183999 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Hultman, Cecilia |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Institutionen för ekologi, miljö och geovetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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