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Quantitative macromolecular patterns in phytoplankton communities resolved at the taxonomical level by single-cell Synchrotron FTIR-spectroscopy
BACKGROUND: Technical limitations regarding bulk analysis of phytoplankton biomass limit our comprehension of carbon fluxes in natural populations and, therefore, of carbon, nutrients and energy cycling in aquatic ecosystems. In this study, we took advantage of Synchrotron FTIR micro-spectroscopy an...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6466684/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30987593 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12870-019-1736-8 |
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author | Fanesi, Andrea Wagner, Heiko Birarda, Giovanni Vaccari, Lisa Wilhelm, Christian |
author_facet | Fanesi, Andrea Wagner, Heiko Birarda, Giovanni Vaccari, Lisa Wilhelm, Christian |
author_sort | Fanesi, Andrea |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Technical limitations regarding bulk analysis of phytoplankton biomass limit our comprehension of carbon fluxes in natural populations and, therefore, of carbon, nutrients and energy cycling in aquatic ecosystems. In this study, we took advantage of Synchrotron FTIR micro-spectroscopy and the partial least square regression (PLSr) algorithm to simultaneously quantify the protein, lipid and carbohydrate content at the single-cell level in a mock phytoplankton community (composed by a cyanobacterium, a green-alga and a diatom) grown at two temperatures (15 °C and 25 °C). RESULTS: The PLSr models generated to quantify cell macromolecules presented high quality fit (R(2) ≥ 0.90) and low error of prediction (RMSEP 2–6% of dry weight). The regression coefficients revealed that the prediction of each macromolecule was not exclusively dependent on spectral features corresponding to that compound, but rather on all major macromolecular pools, reflecting adjustments in the overall cell carbon balance. The single-cell analysis, studied by means of Kernel density estimators, showed that the modes of density distribution of macromolecules were different at 15 °C and 25 °C. However, a substantial proportion of cells was biochemically identical at the two temperatures because of population heterogeneity. CONCLUSIONS: The spectroscopic approach presented in this study allows the quantification of macromolecules in single phytoplankton cells. This method showed that population heterogeneity most likely ensures a backup of non-acclimated cells that may rapidly exploit new favourable niches. This finding may have important consequences for the ecology of phytoplankton populations and shows that the “average cell” concept might substantially limit our comprehension of population dynamics and biogeochemical cycles in aquatic ecosystems. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12870-019-1736-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6466684 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-64666842019-04-22 Quantitative macromolecular patterns in phytoplankton communities resolved at the taxonomical level by single-cell Synchrotron FTIR-spectroscopy Fanesi, Andrea Wagner, Heiko Birarda, Giovanni Vaccari, Lisa Wilhelm, Christian BMC Plant Biol Research Article BACKGROUND: Technical limitations regarding bulk analysis of phytoplankton biomass limit our comprehension of carbon fluxes in natural populations and, therefore, of carbon, nutrients and energy cycling in aquatic ecosystems. In this study, we took advantage of Synchrotron FTIR micro-spectroscopy and the partial least square regression (PLSr) algorithm to simultaneously quantify the protein, lipid and carbohydrate content at the single-cell level in a mock phytoplankton community (composed by a cyanobacterium, a green-alga and a diatom) grown at two temperatures (15 °C and 25 °C). RESULTS: The PLSr models generated to quantify cell macromolecules presented high quality fit (R(2) ≥ 0.90) and low error of prediction (RMSEP 2–6% of dry weight). The regression coefficients revealed that the prediction of each macromolecule was not exclusively dependent on spectral features corresponding to that compound, but rather on all major macromolecular pools, reflecting adjustments in the overall cell carbon balance. The single-cell analysis, studied by means of Kernel density estimators, showed that the modes of density distribution of macromolecules were different at 15 °C and 25 °C. However, a substantial proportion of cells was biochemically identical at the two temperatures because of population heterogeneity. CONCLUSIONS: The spectroscopic approach presented in this study allows the quantification of macromolecules in single phytoplankton cells. This method showed that population heterogeneity most likely ensures a backup of non-acclimated cells that may rapidly exploit new favourable niches. This finding may have important consequences for the ecology of phytoplankton populations and shows that the “average cell” concept might substantially limit our comprehension of population dynamics and biogeochemical cycles in aquatic ecosystems. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12870-019-1736-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2019-04-15 /pmc/articles/PMC6466684/ /pubmed/30987593 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12870-019-1736-8 Text en © The Author(s). 2019 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Fanesi, Andrea Wagner, Heiko Birarda, Giovanni Vaccari, Lisa Wilhelm, Christian Quantitative macromolecular patterns in phytoplankton communities resolved at the taxonomical level by single-cell Synchrotron FTIR-spectroscopy |
title | Quantitative macromolecular patterns in phytoplankton communities resolved at the taxonomical level by single-cell Synchrotron FTIR-spectroscopy |
title_full | Quantitative macromolecular patterns in phytoplankton communities resolved at the taxonomical level by single-cell Synchrotron FTIR-spectroscopy |
title_fullStr | Quantitative macromolecular patterns in phytoplankton communities resolved at the taxonomical level by single-cell Synchrotron FTIR-spectroscopy |
title_full_unstemmed | Quantitative macromolecular patterns in phytoplankton communities resolved at the taxonomical level by single-cell Synchrotron FTIR-spectroscopy |
title_short | Quantitative macromolecular patterns in phytoplankton communities resolved at the taxonomical level by single-cell Synchrotron FTIR-spectroscopy |
title_sort | quantitative macromolecular patterns in phytoplankton communities resolved at the taxonomical level by single-cell synchrotron ftir-spectroscopy |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6466684/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30987593 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12870-019-1736-8 |
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