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. 2022 Jul;6(7):965-978.
doi: 10.1038/s41559-022-01750-x. Epub 2022 Jun 2.

The role of zinc in the adaptive evolution of polar phytoplankton

Naihao Ye #  1   2 , Wentao Han #  3 , Andrew Toseland  4 , Yitao Wang  3 , Xiao Fan  3 , Dong Xu  3 , Cock van Oosterhout  4 ; Sea of Change Consortium; Igor V Grigoriev  5   6 , Alessandro Tagliabue  7 , Jian Zhang  3 , Yan Zhang  3 , Jian Ma  3 , Huan Qiu  8 , Youxun Li  9 , Xiaowen Zhang  10   11 , Thomas Mock  12
Collaborators, Affiliations

The role of zinc in the adaptive evolution of polar phytoplankton

Naihao Ye et al. Nat Ecol Evol. 2022 Jul.

Abstract

Zinc is an essential trace metal for oceanic primary producers with the highest concentrations in polar oceans. However, its role in the biological functioning and adaptive evolution of polar phytoplankton remains enigmatic. Here, we have applied a combination of evolutionary genomics, quantitative proteomics, co-expression analyses and cellular physiology to suggest that model polar phytoplankton species have a higher demand for zinc because of elevated cellular levels of zinc-binding proteins. We propose that adaptive expansion of regulatory zinc-finger protein families, co-expanded and co-expressed zinc-binding proteins families involved in photosynthesis and growth in these microalgal species and their natural communities were identified to be responsible for the higher zinc demand. The expression of their encoding genes in eukaryotic phytoplankton metatranscriptomes from pole-to-pole was identified to correlate not only with dissolved zinc concentrations in the upper ocean but also with temperature, suggesting that environmental conditions of polar oceans are responsible for an increased demand of zinc. These results suggest that zinc plays an important role in supporting photosynthetic growth in eukaryotic polar phytoplankton and that this has been critical for algal colonization of low-temperature polar oceans.

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Comment in

  • Polar algae flaunt their zinc assets.
    Blaby-Haas CE. Blaby-Haas CE. Nat Ecol Evol. 2022 Jul;6(7):851-852. doi: 10.1038/s41559-022-01721-2. Nat Ecol Evol. 2022. PMID: 35654897 No abstract available.

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