Phaeodactylum tricornutum

Genoscope undertakes to generate 100,000 new "expressed sequence tags" (ESTs) for Phaeodactylum tricornutum, from cells grown under 10 different conditions.
These 10 conditions have been chosen with the goal of providing pertinent information for the comprehension of key aspects of the biology of the diatoms, which will be important and crucial ecologically for the success and survival of the diatoms.

These conditions will include growth under increased concentrations of CO2, with altered concentrations of nutrients (ex.: N and P deficiency; excess Fe and Si), as well as the growth of different morphotypes on diverse substrates.

P. tricornutum will be used as a model because genes of interest can be easily manipulated in this species. After this, the ESTs will be annotated and organized in the PtDB database which already exists, and they will be aligned with the genomes of T. pseudonana and P. tricornutum, which will be essential for defining the structure of the genes. Expression profiles under different conditions chosen for the establishment of the libraries, will also be incorporated.
Finally, based on annotation of the ESTs, as well as their alignments with the genomes, 1,000 clones will be chosen and sequenced by Genoscope in order to produce complete cDNA sequences to improve the annotation.

Contacts:
Michael Katinka (Genoscope) - Chris Bowler (ENS)