We had a wonderful time at the Molecular Life of Diatoms meeting in Ghent last week!! Many stimulating conversations and fantastic talks. Huge thanks to the organizers for this splendid event #mld8 #protistsOnSky 🤎💛💚🌊
Looking back on last week's Molecular Life of Diatoms conference 🌊. Honored to be hosting this tight-knit, creative and collaborative community in Ghent! Topics ranged from single-cell approaches, imaging breakthroughs, new insights into photosynthesis and symbioses etc. #protistsOnSky #MLD8
A huge thx to @vibtrainconf.bsky.social for this #MLD8 full of diatom geeks. Such a beautiful community & really phenomenal science. @serenaflori.bsky.social could present her latest preprint & I updated the diatom folks on how we make Chaetoceros a good model for phytoplankton symbiosis research !
What a wonderful experience to attend #MLD8! The community is so welcoming and encouraging! It was a great opportunity to meet new amazing people and to share new amazing ideas!
#Ghent #MLD8
In the last talk of the #MLD8 conference, Peter Kroth gave an excellent overview of recent advances on diatom transcription factors, and how they regulate surface adhesion and light sensing 🧬👋
Terpenoid production can be engineered and optimized in Phaeodactylum tricornutum - a promising chassis for bioproduction. Excellent keynote by @michelefabris.bsky.social @ #MLD8
I’ve assumed that the diatom fossil record was more helpful in resolving early diatom evolution than it actually is. Karolina Brulka sets the record straight at #MLD8, revealing that Lower Jurassic Pyxidicula fossils were most likely calcareous nannofossils
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Day 3 of #MLD8 started with an awesome plenary by @sinkingdiatom.bsky.social - identifying the “slow burning fuse” of diatom evolution, punctuated by three pulses of accelerated evolution. Definitely a seminal and must-read pub if you haven’t come across it yet www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....
A new version of ASAFIND (2.0) is out! @asafind.bsky.social. Ansgar Gruber introduced the updated tool at #MLD8 doi.org/10.1111/tpj....
The “big and beautiful” diatom Coscinodiscus granii makes girdle bands with regular pores spaced 285 nm apart. Felicity Ashcroft presents a new set of candidate biomineralization genes from a transcriptome of chemically-synchronized cells. #MLD8
The oil-producing diatom Fistulifera solaris had an interesting evolutionary trajectory. Two species that diverged from the last F. solaris common ancestor millions of years ago, re-hybridized ~0.12MYA which underlies the current allodiploid genome. Hikaru Tago at #MLD8
In Pseudo-nitzschia, only 20% of the cells engage in sexual reproduction, but scRNA-seq shows they are all primed and ready to go. Antonella Ruggiero at #MLD8
Using sexual reproduction markers identified from scRNA data, Arthur Cleyman developed new tools to transform Cylindrotheca closterium and make “pheromone sensing” lines. Cool 😎 #MLD8 @gustbilcke.bsky.social
Single-cell RNA sequencing of two diatom species shows clear patterns of expression during sexual reproduction, shedding light on the mechanisms involved. Great student talk by Nadine Rijsdjik @ #MLD8 @gustbilcke.bsky.social
The design and synthesis of whole synthetic chromosomes (and yes, for diatoms) is now possible. The future is here. (Bogumil Karas @ #MLD8)
Nitrogen limitation and silicon limitation elicit changes in diatom metatranscriptomes, and highlight how little we know about the functional roles of many genes - especially those involved in silica metabolism and biomineralization. Kim Thamatrakoln at #MLD8
pH, carbonate ion, and oxygen probes show major changes in the phycosphere of big centric diatoms, and inhibiting extracellular carbonic anhydrase forces them to switch between using CO2 and bicarb to supply carbon fixation (Glen Wheeler @ #MLD8)
#MLD8 is underway in sunny Ghent! Kicked off with exciting breakthroughs in diatom biology and new tools for molecular studies. Great to reconnect and dive into cell biology, ecophysiology, genomics & biotech. Tiny but mighty! 🌊 #DiatomResearch #BlueBiotech
Find out more: vibbio.tech/4kRX2L7
Bernard Lepetit just gave a fantastic plenary on NPQ in diatoms at #MLD8 - turns out that diatoms can use the zeaxanthin/antheroxanthin/violaxanthin cycle for NPQ with Lhcx, when they don’t have diatoxanthin/diadinoxanthin (!)
Predators come along and crunch off the apex/long axial spines of pennate diatoms (!). Sometimes it’s catastrophic for the diatom, but they’re often totally resilient and can divide again after two days. Eventually the shape is restored. Darja Belisová at #MLD8
Diatoms do DNRA and thrive in the dark, anoxic, sulfidic sediments of Lake Fryxell (the Golden Meadows of Lake Fryxell) - amazing metabolic flexibility to occupy so many ecological niches! Great talk by Elisa Mertz at #MLD8
Michiel Perneel describes patterns of diatom abundance and activities in the Belgian part of the North Sea #MLD8
Having a great time visiting Ghent, Belgium and attending #MLD8 to present my postdoc work on deciphering algal-bacterial interactions under iron limitation using #exometabolomics and #nanoSIP
“We should stop using diatoms as this one box” - we need to take light niche adaptation into account when evaluating the succession and ecology of phytoplankton in Arctic as the ocean warms and we lose sea ice. Johann Lavaud at #MLD8
So many audience questions for Isabell Klawonn about her great talk on fungal infection of diatoms and the implications for the ocean carbon cycle at #MLD8 - safe to say that curiosity is piqued!
Stunning views of diverse diatom cell types generated with cryo-em, with a new workflow developed by Serena Flori @serenaflori.bsky.social at EMBL with @floravincent.bsky.social. Being able to see inside these organisms with this resolution is so incredibly cool. #MLD8
Diatoms take up silicic acid, and use it to synthesize their cell wall -
But not all of the silica is deposited right away. Some of it remains soluble in a silicon storage pool SSP. Very nice work by Tobias Reichelt on how to determine the properties of this SSP #MLD8
