TIGP (BIO)—From microalgae to giant viruses: genomics and biology of key players in carbon cycling

Abstract

Microorganisms have been shaping Earth's atmosphere for four billion years. While not visible to the naked eye, photosynthetic microbes contribute to nearly half of the global primary production and carbon fixation. Their organic carbon and stored energy are passed on to other members of the aquatic food webs through microbial interactions, such as symbiosis between microalgae and heterotrophic hosts and lytic infection by viruses. In particular, giant viruses with large DNA genomes can release the carbon stored in host cells through cell lysis and are increasingly known as the most common environmental viruses of algae and other diverse eukaryotes. In this talk, I will highlight our works on the evolutionary, regulatory, and ecological genomics of these eukaryotic microbes across spatial and temporal scales. Through computational biology and bioinformatic analyses of omic datasets, we provide new insights into the evolutionary origin and virus-host interactions of giant viruses, genome evolution and organellar inheritance in marine calcifying microalgae, and single-cell dynamics of microalga-microbe photosymbiosis.

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