Lotharella globosa, one of the species getting sequencedYoshihisa HirakawaGet your bioinformatic boots on because the National Center for Genome Research (NCGR), in collaboration with the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the international scientific community, is sequencing the transcriptomes from hundreds of the planet's most bizarre and fascinating marine algae. The results from this project, which is to be the largest of its kind ever attempted, will illuminate marine microbial diversity and its pivotal role in shaping ocean ecosystems and the air we breathe.
After receiving nominations from researchers around the world, the NCGR and the Marine Microbial Initiative advisory committee have selected 700 algae, spanning 200 genera, for transcriptome sequencing. Many of the algae that made the list are ultra-tiny species called picoplankton, which are ubiquitous throughout the Earth’s oceans and as important as the rain forests in absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Various harmful algae have also been chosen, including species that cause red tides and those that produce a neurotoxin responsible for shellfish poisoning. Symbiotic algae are in the mix as well, like those that reside within corals and sea anemones and form the photosynthetic engine of the Great Barrier Reef. Even a few non-photosynthetic microbes made it into the sequencing pipeline, such as algal-eating ...
