Publication Date:
2022-05-25
Description:
Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2010. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Nature Publishing Group for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in The ISME Journal 5 (2011): 1057–1060, doi:10.1038/ismej.2010.192.
Description:
In low phosphorus (P) marine systems phytoplankton replace membrane phospholipids with non-phosphorus lipids, but it is not known how rapidly this substitution occurs. Here, when cells of the
model diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana were transferred from P-replete medium to P-free medium,
the phospholipid content of the cells rapidly declined within 48 h from 45±0.9% to 21±4.5% of total
membrane lipids; the difference was made up by non-phosphorus lipids. Conversely, when P-limited
T. pseudonana were resupplied with P, cells reduced the percentage of their total membrane lipid
contributed by a non-phosphorus lipid from 43±1.5% to 7.3±0.9% within 24 h, while the contribution
by phospholipids rose from 2.2±0.1% to 44±3%. This dynamic phospholipid reservoir contained
sufficient P to synthesize multiple haploid genomes, suggesting that phospholipid turnover could be an
important P source for cells. Field observations of phytoplankton lipid content may thus reflect short-term changes in P supply and cellular physiology, rather than simply long-term adjustment to the
environment.
Description:
This research was funded by NSF OCE-0646944 and OCE-
1045670 (B.V.M.), OCE-0723677 and OCE-0549794 (S.T.D.), and by the Graduate School, National
Oceanography Centre, Southampton (P.M).
Keywords:
Betaine lipids
;
DGCC
;
Lipid substitution
;
Non-phosphorus lipids
;
Phosphatidylcholine
;
Diatoms
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Preprint
Format:
application/pdf
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