What is it about?
The world’s oceans act as planetary lungs, absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing the oxygen we breathe. Across vast regions of the oceans this essential function is driven by marine cyanobacteria of the genera Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus through a process called primary production. Importantly, primary production regulates how much CO2 can be removed from our atmosphere and is the catalyst for almost all marine life. Primary production is regulated by the availability of key nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus. Vast swathes of the world’s oceans are nutrient impoverished, and the size of these regions is changing due to climate change. Whilst the numerical dominance of Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus across the world’s nutrient impoverished oceanic regions is well known, our understanding of the molecular mechanisms allowing these organisms to survive and drive primary production remain incomplete.
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Why is it important?
We show that cyanobacteria that specifically occupy oceanic regions depleted of phosphorus e.g. the Mediterranean Sea and North Atlantic gyre, synthesize a novel phosphatase that can release inorganic phosphate from a range of organic phosphate molecules at extremely low substrate concentrations. Such a high affinity phosphatase is important because it demonstrates that there is genetic capacity within populations of these organisms that will provide resilience to long term phosphorus depletion. Given that ocean gyres are expanding due to climate change, regions where nutrient concentrations are exceedingly low, such capacity suggests these organisms will be able to maintain their core photosynthetic and food chain roles in a warming planet. Moreover, this same enzyme is present in marine eukaryotic algae and heterotrophic bacteria highlighting this trait is broadly distributed across the microbial taxonomic world.
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This page is a summary of: A distinct, high-affinity, alkaline phosphatase facilitates occupation of P-depleted environments by marine picocyanobacteria, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, May 2024, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2312892121.
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