A High-Throughput Assay for Quantifying Phenotypic Traits of Microalgae.

Autor: Argyle PA; Climate Change Cluster, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, NSW, Australia., Hinners J; Institute of Coastal Ocean Dynamics, Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, Geesthacht, Germany., Walworth NG; Department of Biological Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States., Collins S; Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom., Levine NM; Department of Biological Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States., Doblin MA; Climate Change Cluster, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, NSW, Australia.; Sydney Institute of Marine Science, Mosman, NSW, Australia.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Frontiers in microbiology [Front Microbiol] 2021 Oct 06; Vol. 12, pp. 706235. Date of Electronic Publication: 2021 Oct 06 (Print Publication: 2021).
DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2021.706235
Abstrakt: High-throughput methods for phenotyping microalgae are in demand across a variety of research and commercial purposes. Many microalgae can be readily cultivated in multi-well plates for experimental studies which can reduce overall costs, while measuring traits from low volume samples can reduce handling. Here we develop a high-throughput quantitative phenotypic assay (QPA) that can be used to phenotype microalgae grown in multi-well plates. The QPA integrates 10 low-volume, relatively high-throughput trait measurements (growth rate, cell size, granularity, chlorophyll a, neutral lipid content, silicification, reactive oxygen species accumulation, and photophysiology parameters: ETRmax, I k , and alpha) into one workflow. We demonstrate the utility of the QPA on Thalassiosira spp., a cosmopolitan marine diatom, phenotyping six strains in a standard nutrient rich environment (f/2 media) using the full 10-trait assay. The multivariate phenotypes of strains can be simplified into two dimensions using principal component analysis, generating a trait-scape. We determine that traits show a consistent pattern when grown in small volume compared to more typical large volumes. The QPA can thus be used for quantifying traits across different growth environments without requiring exhaustive large-scale culturing experiments, which facilitates experiments on trait plasticity. We confirm that this assay can be used to phenotype newly isolated diatom strains within 4 weeks of isolation. The QPA described here is highly amenable to customisation for other traits or unicellular taxa and provides a framework for designing high-throughput experiments. This method will have applications in experimental evolution, modelling, and for commercial applications where screening of phytoplankton traits is of high importance.
Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
(Copyright © 2021 Argyle, Hinners, Walworth, Collins, Levine and Doblin.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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