Description: Flavodoxin is a small electron-transfer protein capable of replacing ferredoxin during periods of Fe deficiency. When evaluating the suitability of flavodoxin as a diagnostic indicator for Fe limitation of phytoplankton growth, we examined its expression in two marine diatoms we cultured using trace-metal-buffered medium. Thalassio-sira weissflogii and Phaeodactylum tricornutum were cultured in ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid-buffered Sargasso Sea water containing from 10 to 1000 nM added Fe. Trace-metal-buffered cultures of each diatom maintained high growth rates across the entire range of Fe additions. Similarly, declines in chlorophyll/cell and in the ratio of photosystem II variable-to-maximum fluorescence were negligible (P. tricornutum) to moderate (T. weissflogii; 54% decline in chlorophyll/cell and 22% decrease in variable-to-maximum fluorescence). Moreover, only minor variations in photosynthetic parameters were observed across the range of additions. In contrast, flavodoxin was expressed to high levels in low-Fe cultures. Despite the inverse relationship between flavodoxin expression and Fe content of the medium, its expression was seemingly independent of any of the indicators of cell physiology that were assayed. It appears that flavodoxin is expressed as an early-stage response to Fe stress and that its accumulation need not be intimately connected to limitations imposed by Fe on the growth rate of these diatoms.

Description: Iron supply has been suggested to influence phytoplankton biomass, growth rate and species composition, as well as primary productivity in both high and low NO3− surface waters. Recent investigations in the equatorial Pacific suggest that no single factor regulates primary productivity. Rather, an interplay of bottom-up (i.e., ecophysiological) and top-down (i.e., ecological) factors appear to control species composition and growth rates. One goal of biological oceanography is to isolate the effects of single factors from this multiplicity of interactions, and to identify the factors with a disproportionate impact. Unfortunately, our tools, with several notable exceptions, have been largely inadequate to the task. In particular, the standard technique of nutrient addition bioassays cannot be undertaken without introducing artifacts. These so-called ‘bottle effects’ include reducing turbulence, isolating the enclosed sample from nutrient resupply and grazing, trapping the isolated sample at a fixed position within the water column and thus removing it from vertical movement through a light gradient, and exposing the sample to potentially stimulatory or inhibitory substances on the enclosure walls. The problem faced by all users of enrichment experiments is to separate the effects of controlled nutrient additions from uncontrolled changes in other environmental and ecological factors. To overcome these limitations, oceanographers have sought physiological or molecular indices to diagnose nutrient limitation in natural samples. These indices are often based on reductions in the abundance of photosynthetic and other catalysts, or on changes in the efficiency of these catalysts. Reductions in photosynthetic efficiency often accompany nutrient limitation either because of accumulation of damage, or impairment of the ability to synthesize fully functional macromolecular assemblages. Many catalysts involved in electron transfer and reductive biosyntheses contain iron, and the abundances of most of these catalysts decline under iron-limited conditions. Reductions of ferredoxin or cytochrome f content, nitrate assimilation rates, and dinitrogen fixation rates are amongst the diagnostics that have been used to infer iron limitation in some marine systems. An alternative approach to diagnosing iron-limitation uses molecules whose abundance increases in response to iron-limitation. These include cell surface iron-transport proteins, and the electron transfer protein flavodoxin which replaces the Fe-S protein ferredoxin in many Fe-deficient algae and cyanobacteria.