Skip to main content

Prochlorococcus ecotype abundances in the North Atlantic Ocean as revealed by an improved quantitative PCR method.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Zinser, ER; Coe, A; Johnson, ZI; Martiny, AC; Fuller, NJ; Scanlan, DJ; Chisholm, SW
Published in: Applied and environmental microbiology
January 2006

The cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus numerically dominates the photosynthetic community in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world's oceans. Six evolutionary lineages of Prochlorococcus have been described, and their distinctive physiologies and genomes indicate that these lineages are "ecotypes" and should have different oceanic distributions. Two methods recently developed to quantify these ecotypes in the field, probe hybridization and quantitative PCR (QPCR), have shown that this is indeed the case. To facilitate a global investigation of these ecotypes, we modified our QPCR protocol to significantly increase its speed, sensitivity, and accessibility and validated the method in the western and eastern North Atlantic Ocean. We showed that all six ecotypes had distinct distributions that varied with depth and location, and, with the exception of the deeper waters at the western North Atlantic site, the total Prochlorococcus counts determined by QPCR matched the total counts measured by flow cytometry. Clone library analyses of the deeper western North Atlantic waters revealed ecotypes that are not represented in the culture collections with which the QPCR primers were designed, explaining this discrepancy. Finally, similar patterns of relative ecotype abundance were obtained in QPCR and probe hybridization analyses of the same field samples, which could allow comparisons between studies.

Duke Scholars

Altmetric Attention Stats
Dimensions Citation Stats

Published In

Applied and environmental microbiology

DOI

EISSN

1098-5336

ISSN

0099-2240

Publication Date

January 2006

Volume

72

Issue

1

Start / End Page

723 / 732

Related Subject Headings

  • Sequence Analysis, DNA
  • Seawater
  • RNA, Ribosomal, 16S
  • Prochlorococcus
  • Polymerase Chain Reaction
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Microbiology
  • Flow Cytometry
  • Ecosystem
  • DNA, Ribosomal Spacer
 

Citation

APA
Chicago
ICMJE
MLA
NLM
Zinser, E. R., Coe, A., Johnson, Z. I., Martiny, A. C., Fuller, N. J., Scanlan, D. J., & Chisholm, S. W. (2006). Prochlorococcus ecotype abundances in the North Atlantic Ocean as revealed by an improved quantitative PCR method. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 72(1), 723–732. https://doi.org/10.1128/aem.72.1.723-732.2006
Zinser, Erik R., Allison Coe, Zackary I. Johnson, Adam C. Martiny, Nicholas J. Fuller, David J. Scanlan, and Sallie W. Chisholm. “Prochlorococcus ecotype abundances in the North Atlantic Ocean as revealed by an improved quantitative PCR method.Applied and Environmental Microbiology 72, no. 1 (January 2006): 723–32. https://doi.org/10.1128/aem.72.1.723-732.2006.
Zinser ER, Coe A, Johnson ZI, Martiny AC, Fuller NJ, Scanlan DJ, et al. Prochlorococcus ecotype abundances in the North Atlantic Ocean as revealed by an improved quantitative PCR method. Applied and environmental microbiology. 2006 Jan;72(1):723–32.
Zinser, Erik R., et al. “Prochlorococcus ecotype abundances in the North Atlantic Ocean as revealed by an improved quantitative PCR method.Applied and Environmental Microbiology, vol. 72, no. 1, Jan. 2006, pp. 723–32. Epmc, doi:10.1128/aem.72.1.723-732.2006.
Zinser ER, Coe A, Johnson ZI, Martiny AC, Fuller NJ, Scanlan DJ, Chisholm SW. Prochlorococcus ecotype abundances in the North Atlantic Ocean as revealed by an improved quantitative PCR method. Applied and environmental microbiology. 2006 Jan;72(1):723–732.

Published In

Applied and environmental microbiology

DOI

EISSN

1098-5336

ISSN

0099-2240

Publication Date

January 2006

Volume

72

Issue

1

Start / End Page

723 / 732

Related Subject Headings

  • Sequence Analysis, DNA
  • Seawater
  • RNA, Ribosomal, 16S
  • Prochlorococcus
  • Polymerase Chain Reaction
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Microbiology
  • Flow Cytometry
  • Ecosystem
  • DNA, Ribosomal Spacer