Abstract
The relative abundance of transcripts encoding proteins involved in inorganic carbon concentrating mechanisms (CCM), detoxification of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and photosynthesis in the thermophilic cyanobacterium Synechococcus OS-B′ was measured in hot spring microbial mats over two diel cycles, and was coupled with in situ determinations of incoming irradiance and microenvironmental dynamics of O2 and pH. Fluctuations in pH and O2 in the mats were largely driven by the diel cycle of solar irradiance, with a pH variation from ∼7.0 to ∼9.5, and O2 levels ranging from anoxia to supersaturation during night and day, respectively. Levels of various transcripts from mat cyanobacteria revealed several patterns that correlated with incident irradiance, O2 and pH within the mat matrix. Transcript abundances for most genes increased during the morning dark–light transition. Some transcripts remained at a near constant level throughout the light period, whereas others showed an additional increase in abundance as the mat underwent transition from low-to-high light (potentially reflecting changes in O2 concentration and pH), followed by either a decreased abundance in the early afternoon, or a gradual decline during the early afternoon and into the evening. One specific transcipt, psbA1, was the lowest during mid-day under high irradiance and increased when the light levels declined. We discuss these complex in situ transcriptional patterns with respect to environmental and endogenous cues that might impact and regulate transcription over the diel cycle.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the US National Park Service and personnel from the Yellowstone National Park for their permission to conduct this work (permit YELL-2058; MK) and their kind and helpful assistance. We also thank C Klatt, E Becraft and DM Ward for assistance and logistical help during the fieldtrips, F Fazeli for help in the laboratory, and D Gonzalez-Ballester and S Bailey for helpful inputs and discussions. This study was funded by an internationalization PhD grant from the Danish Research Council (MK), with additional support from the National Science Foundation (Frontiers in Integrative Biology Program Grant EF-0328698; ARG, DB, MK), the Danish Natural Science Research Council (MK) and the Carnegie Institution for Science (DB, ARG).
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Jensen, S., Steunou, AS., Bhaya, D. et al. In situ dynamics of O2, pH and cyanobacterial transcripts associated with CCM, photosynthesis and detoxification of ROS. ISME J 5, 317–328 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2010.131
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2010.131
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