SAMS news room

The first ever seaweed genome has been published in Nature.  Ectocarpus siliculosus is a small, easily grown brown alga (seaweed) used widely as a model species. It is a convenient  to provide insight into economically and environmentally important seaweed species, such as kelps (which are important sources of alginates and third generation biofuels, also providing the canopy in rocky shore habitats). It has been called the “lab rat” of the macro-algal world.

Four members of SAMS have been working with an international consortium led by the Station Biologique de Roscoff (SBR), since 2004. Dr  Claire Gachon, Dr Frithjof Küpper and Ms Martina Strittmatter manually sorted through over 600 gene sequences, searching for the genes that code for important proteins involved in the seaweed’s defence against pathogens. Dr Svenja Heesch, while working at SBR, compiled the genetic map which is instrumental in locating genes on the chromosomes of Ectocarpus.

Brown seaweeds are one of only a very small number of phylogenetic groups in which complex multicellular development produces macroscopic organisms with immediately recognisable shapes. If you look around you at the natural world it is essentially the members of this club, which also includes the animals, the fungi, green plants and algae and red seaweeds, that you immediately recognise. Interestingly, each of these phylogenetic groups is thought to have evolved complex multicellularity independently of the others, so that each group can be considered to represent an independent evolutionary "experiment" in developmental biology. In principle, comparative analysis of these phylogenetic groups could provide insights into this important evolutionary transition. However, such analyses have been complicated. Essential molecular information such as genome sequences has not been available for some of these phylogenetic groups, particularly the seaweeds. The publication of the genome sequence of the brown alga Ectocarpus siliculosus therefore represents an important step forward in this domain.

The paper:

Cock JM, Sterck L, Rouzé P, Scornet D, Allen AE, Amoutzias G, Anthouard V, Artiguenave F, Aury J-M, Badger JH, Beszteri B, Billiau K, Bonnet E, Bothwell JHF, Bowler C, Boyen C, Brownlee C, Carrano CJ, Charrier B, Cho GY, Coelho SM, Collén J, Corre E, Da Silva C, Delage L, Delaroque N, Dittami SM, Doulbeau S, Elias M, Farnham G, Gachon CMM, Gschloessl B, Heesch S, Jabbari K, Jubin C, Kawai H, Kimura K, Kloareg B, Küpper FC, Lang D, Le Bail A, Leblanc C, Lerouge P, Lohr M, Lopez PJ, Martens C, Maumus F, Michel G, Miranda-Saavedra D, Morales J, Moreau H, Motomura T, Nagasato C, Napoli CA, Nelson DR, Nyvall-Collén P, Peters AF, Pommier C, Potin P, Poulain P, Quesneville H, Read B, Rensing SA, Ritter A, Rousvoal S, Samanta M, Samson G, Schroeder DC, Ségurens B, Strittmatter M, Tonon T, Tregear J, Valentin K, von Dassow P, Yamagishi T, Van de Peer Y, Wincker P, 2010: The Ectocarpus genome and the independent evolution of multicellularity in the brown algae.- Nature 465, 617-21