INBA   12521
INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES EN BIOCIENCIAS AGRICOLAS Y AMBIENTALES
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
CARBOHYDRATE METABOLISM IN Ostreococcus tauri: TREHALOSE IN GREEN LINEAGE BASE ORGANISMS
Autor/es:
CALÓ GF; PEREZ-CENCI M; PONTIS HG; SALERNO GL
Lugar:
Puerto Madryn
Reunión:
Congreso; XLVI Reunión Anual Sociedad Argentina de Investigación enBioquímica y Biología Molecular; 2010
Institución organizadora:
Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular
Resumen:
Non-reducing disaccharides provide a soluble energy source in the form of a stable molecule that can also function as a protectant compound. In the green lineage the most important soluble disaccharide is Sucrose, mainly limited to oxygenic photosynthetic organisms (land plants, algae and cyanobacteria). Trehalose (Tre), another important disaccharide distributed in nature, is present mainly in arthropods, fungi and bacteria. While sucrose plays a role in land plants, that of Tre is still controversial. Ostreococcus tauri, the smallest free-living photosynthetic eukaryote, has recently been sequenced. It belongs to Prasinophiceae, one of the most ancient groups within the green lineage. The aim of this study is to understand the basis of carbohydrate metabolism in photosynthetic picoeukaryotes. Using sucrose-metabolism related sequences as queries against the sequenced genomes from O. tauri and O. lucimarinus, no homologous sequences could be retrieved. Sugars extracted from O. tauri cultures were separated by chromatography, showing Tre as the main soluble sugar. Enzyme activity of Tre-Phosphate Synthase (TPS) paralleled the accumulation of Tre. The effect of light and different nitrogen concentrations on Tre accumulation were also analyzed. We conclude that Tre plays a physiological function in O. tauri similar to that of sucrose in land plants.