Polyploid Achromatium sp. expresses protein variants based on environmental cues
Achromatium spp. are giant bacteria harboring hundreds of non-clonal chromosomes per cell. The allelic divergence they exhibit could be a mechanism to enable fine-tuned responses to environmental changes, enabling this organism to broaden its ecological range. However, while ubiquitous in freshwater and marine environments, Achromatium has not been obtained in culture, leaving the role and…
Achromatium spp. are large bacteria that possess numerous distinct chromosomes inside each cell. This genetic variation could allow the organism to adapt quickly to changing environmental conditions, thus expanding its ability to live in various ecosystems. Despite being found in both freshwater and marine habitats, Achromatium has remained elusive in laboratory culture, which has made it difficult for scientists to study the functions of its diverse genes and proteins.
To better understand these factors, researchers subjected freshly collected freshwater Achromatium to three different temperatures and performed mass spectrometry-based proteomics experiments to analyze the resulting proteins. By using a protein atlas specifically designed for Achromatium, the scientists identified nearly twenty times more proteins than previous searches in the UniProt database.
Among the predicted proteins, around 5% of them displayed distinct variants depending on the temperature they were exposed to. This discovery marks the first evidence that Achromatium can express different protein versions in response to varying environmental factors, allowing it to rapidly adjust its biochemistry to suit its surroundings.
Written by urgent.news from bioRxiv's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
