Our paper on the cultivation and genomics of the freshwater SAR11 strain LSUCC0530
has been published online in the ISME Journal (Here). The SAR11 LD12 lineage evolved to colonize freshwater ecosystems, and, like its marine cousins, occurs as one of the most
abundant freshwater bacterioplankton worldwide. Strain LSUCC0530 represents the first
cultivated representative of the LD12 clade and presented the Thrash lab with an
unprecedented opportunity to provide new insights into the important evolutionary
processes behind marine-freshwater transitions. Specifically, we demonstrated the capacity of strain LSUCC0530 to grow in salinities up to 5, provided evidence for LD12 ecotype differentiation based on temperature, and developed a hypothesis on how the loss of key genetic functions enabled the SAR11 clade to transition into fresh water. This work is only the beginning of our exploration into the SAR11 LD12 clade and its marine-freshwater transition, so be on the look out for more data soon!
If you have any questions or want to know more about LSUCC0530, please feel free to contact us! We are more than willing to answer any questions you may have.
Henson, Michael W., V. Celeste Lanclos, Brant C. Faircloth, and J. Cameron Thrash. (2018) Cultivation and genomics of the first freshwater SAR11 (LD12) isolate. The ISME Journal. AOP.
Emily presented her LA Sea Grant-funded work to characterize one of our coastal isolates from the OM252 clade, LSUCC0096. She showed this organism has remarkable salinity tolerance, and can grow under chemolithoautotrophic conditions, a feature that was predicted from genome analysis.
Celeste presented results of her experiment to enrich for microorganisms that could utilize fulvic acids as their sole carbon source. She compared her work to that of former lab member Jessica Weckhorst who performed a similar experiment with humic acids. These are both extremely important fractions of the marine DOC pool.
