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Edited by Donald R. Ort, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Urbana, IL, and approved November 4, 2020 (received for review May 3, 2020)
Significance
Vast areas of the oceans are N limited, and how microalgae can flourish in these N-poor waters is still not known. Furthermore, mechanisms and sites of N uptake and storage have not been fully determined. We show that crystalline guanine (C5H5N5O) is an important N storage form for phytoplankton and for symbiotic dinoflagellates of corals. The widespread occurrence of guanine reserves among taxonomically distant microalgal species suggests an early evolutionary origin of its function as N storage. Crystalline guanine appears to be a multifunctional biochemical with an important role in the N cycle that remains to be elucidated. In particular, a better knowledge of N-storage metabolism is necessary to understand the impact of eutrophication on coral-symbiont interaction.
Abstract
Nitrogen (N) is an essential macronutrient for microalgae, influencing their productivity, composition, and growth dynamics. Despite the dramatic consequences of N starvation, many free-living and endosymbiotic microalgae thrive in N-poor and N-fluctuating environments, giving rise to questions about the existence and nature of their long-term N reserves. Our understanding of these processes requires a unequivocal identification of the N reserves in microalgal cells as well as their turnover kinetics and subcellular localization. Herein, we identified crystalline guanine as the enigmatic large-capacity and rapid-turnover N reserve of microalgae. The identification was unambiguously supported by confocal Raman, fluorescence, and analytical transmission electron microscopies as well as stable isotope labeling. We discovered that the storing capacity for crystalline guanine by the marine dinoflagellate Amphidinium carterae was sufficient to support N requirements for several new generations. We determined that N reserves were rapidly accumulated from guanine available in the environment as well as biosynthesized from various N-containing nutrients. Storage of exogenic N in the form of crystalline guanine was found broadly distributed across taxonomically distant groups of microalgae from diverse habitats, from freshwater and marine free-living forms to endosymbiotic microalgae of reef-building corals (Acropora millepora, Euphyllia paraancora). We propose that crystalline guanine is the elusive N depot that mitigates the negative consequences of episodic N shortage. Guanine (C5H5N5O) may act similarly to cyanophycin (C10H19N5O5) granules in cyanobacteria. Considering the phytoplankton nitrogen pool size and dynamics, guanine is proposed to be an important storage form participating in the global N cycle.
Footnotes
- ↵1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: l.nedbal{at}fz-juelich.de.
Author contributions: P.M., A.So., and L.N. designed research; P.M., L.G., T.I., J.P., O.G., A.So., and A.Sa. performed research; P.M., L.G., T.I., O.G., A.So., L.N., and A.Sa. analyzed data; and P.M., L.G., A.So., L.N., and A.Sa. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no competing interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
This article contains supporting information online at https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.2005460117/-/DCSupplemental.
Data Availability.
All study data are included in the article and supporting information.
Published under the PNAS license.
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Guanine, a high-capacity and rapid-turnover nitrogen reserve in microalgal cells
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- Biological Sciences
- Plant Biology
- Physical Sciences
- Biophysics and Computational Biology
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