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Seminar Details

Communication via extracellular vesicles during host-virus interactions in the ocean

Date

11/01/2018

Lecturers

Dr. Daniella Schatz - Dept. of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science

Abstract

Communication between microorganisms in the marine environment has immense ecological impact by mediating trophic-level interactions and thus determining community structure. Despite their importance, very little is known about modes of cell-cell communication that may coordinate biotic interactions in the marine environment. We investigated the signaling role of extracellular vesicles produced during interactions between the cosmopolitan alga Emiliania huxleyi and its specific virus, EhV. E. huxleyi, a eukaryotic, unicellular alga produces massive oceanic blooms that cover thousands of square kilometers, often displaying a synchronized “boom and bust” dynamics, suggesting that communication is involved in bloom demise. Using Nanosight technology, we found that extracellular vesicles are highly produced during viral infection or when bystander cells are exposed to chemical cues derived from infected cells. Lipidomics and transcriptomic analyses of these extracellular vesicles demonstrated that they have a unique lipid composition that differs from that of their infected host cells, and their cargo is composed of selected small RNAs that are predicted to target sphingolipid metabolism and cell-cycle pathways. E. huxleyi cells can uptake vesicles, consequently leading to a faster viral infection dynamic and prolonging EhV half-life in the extracellular milieu. We propose that extracellular vesicles are exploited by viruses to sustain efficient infectivity and propagation across E. huxleyi blooms. Since these algal blooms have immense impact on cycling of carbon and sulfur, this novel mode of cell-cell communication may influence the fate of the blooms and, consequently, the composition and flow of nutrients in the microbial food webs in the ocean.

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