Metabolomic response of Euglena gracilis and its bleached mutant strain to light

Qing Shao; Lang Hu; Huan Qin; Yerong Liu; Xing Tang; Anping Lei; Jiangxin Wang

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0224926

Metabolomic response of Euglena gracilis and its bleached mutant strain to light

PLoS One. 2019 Nov 7;14(11):e0224926. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0224926. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Qing Shao¹, Lang Hu², Huan Qin¹, Yerong Liu¹, Xing Tang¹, Anping Lei¹, Jiangxin Wang¹

Affiliations

¹ Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Marine Bioresource and Eco-environmental Science, Shenzhen Engineering Laboratory for Marine Algal Biotechnology, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory for Plant Epigenetics, College of Life Sciences and Oceanography, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.
² College of Life Sciences and Technology, Hubei Engineering University, Xiaogan, China.

Abstract

Euglena, a new superfood on the market, is a nutrient-rich, green single-celled microorganism that features the characteristics of both plant and animal. When cultivated under different conditions, Euglena produces different bioactive nutrients. Interestingly, Euglena is the only known microorganism whose chloroplasts are easy to lose under stress and become permanently bleached. We applied gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) to determine the metabolomes of wild-type (WT) Euglena gracilis and its bleached mutant OflB2 under light stimulation. We found a significant metabolic difference between WT and OflB2 cells in response to light. An increase of membrane components (phospholipids and acylamides) was observed in WT, while a decrease of some stimulant metabolites was detected in OflB2. These metabolomic changes after light stimulation are of great significance to the development of Euglena chloroplasts and their communications with the nucleus.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Cluster Analysis
Euglena gracilis / growth & development
Euglena gracilis / metabolism*
Euglena gracilis / radiation effects*
Light*
Metabolome / radiation effects
Metabolomics*
Mutation / genetics*
Pigments, Biological / metabolism
Principal Component Analysis

Substances

Pigments, Biological

Grants and funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (31670116 to AL), the Guangdong Innovation Research Team Fund (2014ZT05S078 to JW), and the Shenzhen Grant Plan for Science & Technology (JCYJ20160308095910917, JCYJ20170818100339597, both to JW). They are used for the design of the study, data collection, data analysis and manuscript writing, respectively. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.