1. Introduction
Dinoflagellates are unicellular organisms, which occupy multiple trophic levels in marine ecosystems, ranging from photo-autotrophy, predation, mixotrophy, to even parasitism [
1,
2,
3]. They are a significant component of phytoplankton communities, responsible for producing a large portion of the world’s oxygen and serve as the primary food source for a wide array of marine organisms, including zooplankton, small fish, and filter feeders [
4,
5,
6]. Their ability to photosynthesize and sometimes feed enables them to thrive in various environmental conditions, making them vital for maintaining and disturbing ecological balance and supporting biodiversity in aquatic habitats.
Some species of dinoflagellates are also known to cause harmful algal blooms (HABs), which can have devastating ecological and economic impacts [
7,
8,
9]. These blooms occur when dinoflagellate populations grow explosively under favorable conditions, producing toxins that can kill fish, shellfish, and other marine life, and pose serious health risks to humans through seafood consumption or direct exposure. The toxins can also lead to significant economic losses in fisheries, tourism, and public health sectors. On a broader level the single-species dominance of a bloom influences the microbial community both directly and indirectly.
Many dinoflagellate cultures contain abundant bacterial populations, likely originating from the original sample isolated from the environment [
10,
11,
12]. The role of bacterial populations on dinoflagellate toxin production is one that remains hotly debated, with prior research showing evidence of dinoflagellate dependence on bacteria for toxin-production and others showing the opposite [
13,
14,
15,
16,
17,
18]. Some of these studies involve the filtering of bacteria from dinoflagellate cultures, followed by null amplification of 16S regions as verification to prove a culture is axenic, and subsequent high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis to show if toxin is still produced in the axenic culture [
19,
20,
21]. Results of these studies have been contradictory.
Currently, consistent culturing of dinoflagellate cultures with antibiotics is a common practice to select for organisms of interest and maintain monoclonal conditions. Eukaryotic cultures can be maintained with antibiotics to decrease the effects of bacterial populations on downstream analysis such as sequencing efforts, toxin analysis, and translation rate studies [
22]. Although antibiotic use in dinoflagellate culturing can be useful, there is concern about bacterial antibiotic resistance allowing for re-growth of bacterial populations, as well as the impact antibiotics can have on the growth of the dinoflagellate culture.
We propose a new approach to investigate bacterial contributions to dinoflagellate cultures, by way of full bacterial genome assembly from long-read sequencing to identify pathways present in those bacterial populations, determine microbial taxonomic composition, and estimate relative abundance [
23,
24]. Here, we use this approach in a toxin-producing
Amphidinium carterae CCMP1314 culture with a long history of laboratory growth in the presence of carbenicillin, kanamycin A, and spectinomycin antibiotics. This approach provides a potentially more complete, unbiased measure of bacterial diversity and metabolism within the
A. carterae culture with and without ongoing antibiotic treatment.
Amphidinium carterae was chosen for this study firstly because of its cosmopolitan appearance in nature: it is one of the most common species found in sediments in multiple ecosystems [
25,
26,
27]. Cultures of
A. carterae are also easy to maintain and are known to grow to relatively high density compared to other dinoflagellate species [
28,
29]. This species is also often used as a model athecate photosynthetic peridinin-pigmented dinoflagellate due to a smaller genome compared to other free-living dinoflagellate species, and because it is a relatively early diverging toxic species [
30]
.
In this study we have found populations of bacteria in an A. carterae culture that have thrived in the presence of antibiotics, identified antimicrobial genes within these populations, and observed how the dinoflagellate culture responds when reverted back to antibiotic-free growth conditions.
3. Discussion
Of the 15 genomes assembled every genome has a high (>95%) identity 16S rDNA match to an existing annotated sequence suggesting that the culture does not contain any entirely novel bacteria. Many of the assembled genomes were identified as bacterial species that have previously been observed as co-existing with dinoflagellates. Interestingly, the Planctomycetota bacteria assembled was identified as
SM1A02, an uncultured strain associated with many dinoflagellate cultures [
39]. This species’ genome has previously been reconstructed using metagenomic assembly and binning. Research by Baker et al. found two of these
SM1A02 genomes to be 2.6 and 2.9Mb, while we have assembled a 3.4Mb genome here. Most recently, an assembly of
SM1A02 was produced from a
Karlodinium culture which agrees with our genome length of 3.4Mb [
40].
SM1A02 is thought to likely be an anammox bacteria – efficient at nutrient removal, specifically through anaerobic ammonium oxidation [
41]. This ability to oxidize ammonium to nitrogen gas may have an impact on the close association with dinoflagellate species.
Roseovarius mucosus was also identified, similar to a species found with the dinoflagellate
Alexandrium ostenfeldii. In prior research, genes in
R. mucosus were found that may play crucial roles in the interrelationship of the bacterium and dinoflagellate, such as genes for dimethyl sulfoniopropionate (DMSP) utilization. Research on the close interactions of DMSP-degrading
Roseobacter species with DMSP-producing dinoflagellates are well-established [
42]. Our metabolic results show
R. mucosus likely has pathways for thiosulfate oxidation, supporting these past findings [
43]. The ability for thiosulfate oxidation may also have a connection to the common sulfation of toxic amphidinol products produced by
A. carterae or more broadly for sulfur cycling within the cultures [
44,
45]. The pathway for assimilatory nitrate reduction found in the
R. mucosus genome has been observed as a potential nitrogen source by some [
46,
47]. The pathway for polyamine biosynthesis for putrescine and spermidine was also found in the
R. mucosus genome, which may play an essential role in dinoflagellate growth [
48,
49,
50]. The presence of PSII and other carbon-fixing pathways also aligns well with prior research of this species [
51].
Hoeflea alexandrii and
Oceanicaulis alexandrii were discovered with a dinoflagellate species of
Alexandrium as well as bacterial species
Labrenzia alexandrii and
Nitratireductor alexandrii, which may be closely related to the
Labrenzia and
Nitratireductor species assembled here [
52,
53,
54,
55].
Marinobacter adhaerens has been found in close association with
Pyrodinium, another toxin-producing dinoflagellate [
56].
Muricauda species have been previously associated with
Amphidinium as well [
57]. A
Seohaeicola species genome was recently assembled from a culture of
Karlodinium, another toxin-producing dinoflagellate species [
40]. Some species such as
O. stylonematis,
A. s albus, C. xiamenense and
R. porphyridii were discovered in association with other kinds of microalgae such as diatoms and red algae [
58,
59,
60,
61,
62].
Some species found only in the antibiotic-free cultures may be opportunistic due to the nutrient availability caused by dinoflagellate senescence. Both the assembled
R. porphyridii genome and the
H. alexandrii genome were found in very low abundances in the antibiotic-free culture. The
R. porphyridii species in a genus of purple non-sulphur bacteria known to be halophilic and have the ability to perform photosynthesis [
58]. Thiosulfate oxidation pathway genes were also found in the
H. alexandrii genome.
The transition from antibiotic treatment to untreated is unlikely to have resulted in the introduction of new bacteria to the culture as all taxa were seen and could be at least partially assembled in sequencing of either antibiotic treated or untreated culture. Thus, the microbiome shift is more likely due to stronger growth of some species over others when antibiotics were present or absent rather than recruitment of novel species during culture changes, which were performed under sterile conditions.
Previous studies have demonstrated that use of the KAS-antibiotic treatment (with kanamycin A, ampicillin, and streptomycin) can be used to favor pigmented bacterial species [
63]. Similar mechanisms may be why we saw such a shift towards bacterial populations with PSII and carbon fixation systems with the use of our antibiotic cocktail, from 12.5% to 50% of the highly abundant bacterial species having PSII pathways with the antibiotic-treatment. The
R. mucosus identified in past dinoflagellate cultures, which dominated the antibiotic-treated microbiome in this experiment, has been shown to contain bacteriochlorophyll
a [
51]. There is also evidence of dinoflagellates protecting certain pigmented bacterial populations from antibiotics as the pigmented bacteria may be protecting the microalgal cells from light stress via carotenoid production, which was previously shown to be produced by multiple assembled bacterial species (
Figure 4) [
63]. In prior research regarding coral symbiont dinoflagellate
Symbiodinium, the bacterial microbiome was observed to support the dinoflagellate’s PSII yield and decrease the production or reactive oxygen species (ROSs) [
64]
Antimicrobial resistance appears to be generally common amongst bacterial populations found in dinoflagellate cultures. In the case of the assembled genomes here, all of them had hundreds of potential antibiotic-resistance genes that likely allow their broad prevalence (
Figure 5). The reasons for why some bacteria were found to survive better in antibiotic-treated or antibiotic-free conditions could be due to multiple causes. One may be that the minimum inhibitory concentration of the antibiotic used may differ from the actual concentration tested [
65]. This may be due to the mechanism of resistance, or the antibiotic’s resistance to degradation (such as in the case of carbenicillin compared to ampicillin) [
66]. The specific genes found within each of these resistance groups may have varying efficacy against the antibiotics as well. In the case of
R. mucosus, which best-endured the antibiotic-treatment used here, it may be that one of the nine antibiotic-resistant genes has greater efficacy over one or more of the antibiotics used compared to the machinery found in the other genomes (
Figure 6).
The extent to which the bacteria from the assembled genomes are mutual, commensal, or deleterious to the
A. carterae population is still obscure. The fact that the dinoflagellate population significantly decreased and showed signs of mass lysis without antibiotics leads us to believe that at least one abundant bacterial species in the antibiotic-free culture is likely the cause. Prior research on antibiotic effects on dinoflagellate growth have shown various results. In some cases, dinoflagellates appear to require their associated microbiomes to survive [
11,
67]. In the case of the antibiotic cocktail used here, the growth results align with previous observations of the antibiotic-treated
Amphidinium cultures having a slightly extended growth phase and the ability to maintain higher densities of dinoflagellate cells [
22]. Based on our microscopy analysis, we suspect the 10µm length rod-shaped bacteria that began to accumulate around the start of mass-cell-lysis is likely harmful to the dinoflagellates and may possess some algicidal properties. We could deduce the culprit may be
Marivirga tractuosa or
Seohaeicola saemankumensis due to the increased abundance found in the antibiotic-free culture (
Figure 2B), as well as prior descriptions of this species being rod-shaped. Cells of
M. tractuosa can be between 10-50µm length, while
S. saemankumensis has been shown to be up to 5µm in length [
68,
69,
70]. The
M. tractuosa genome lacks many main metabolic pathways, such as amino acid biosynthesis suggesting this species requires resources gained from the lysed dinoflagellate cells. The
M. tractuosa genome was also found to have complete denitrification pathways, which may contribute to a loss of bioavailable nitrogen in the culture [
71]. The Coenzyme M pathway alludes to methanogenic abilities and production of methane, and potentially the use of dinoflagellate-released DMSP as a precursor [
72,
73]. Harmful algal blooms have been observed to precede methane increases in aquatic environments, which may be in part due to the shift in microbial community [
73].
Prior research has been contentious over the secondary metabolite synthesis potential of dinoflagellate microbiomes, and contrasting results have identified toxin production as a product either of the bacterial community or the dinoflagellate cells themselves [
13,
14,
15,
16,
17,
74,
75,
76,
77]. The fifteen apparently complete genomes assembled from this culture likely represent the bulk of prokaryotic diversity due to the extent of our sequencing and the production of full, well-covered genomes. Any missing diversity would likely be in very low abundance to evade detection and are not likely to be present at a level to contribute to toxin biosynthesis. Similarly, the gene annotation provides a potentially complete picture of the culture metabolic potential. However, a large fraction of predicted genes was unannotated, likely due to imperfect prediction of protein coding genes as well as knowledge gaps of every possible bacterial pathway. Our genome analysis into secondary metabolite synthesis has shown no evidence of potential bacterial origin for a processive multidomain PKS gene responsible for the amphidinol toxins associated with our
A. carterae culture. Since multidomain, processive PKS genes are very large open reading frames rich in easily defined conserved domains these genes would be unlikely to have been missed in the genomes described here. Several multidomain PKS / NRPS genes derived from bacteria are present broadly across core dinoflagellate transcriptomes which generally express a surfeit of domains associated with toxin production and lipid synthesis whether or not they are document toxin-producing species [
18]. More research could be done to see what effect metabolic pathways, such as thiosulfate oxidation, may have on toxin production. Although it seems most likely that
A. carterae independently synthesizes amphidinols, the bacterial populations may contribute resources for the task, such as acetate [
45,
78,
79]. Of the bacterial genomes assembled, only
M. adhaerens was shown to have a complete pathway for a phosphate acetyltransferase−acetate kinase pathway which produces acetate from acetyl-CoA (
Figure 3).
Oceaniradius stylonematis, S. saemankumensis, R. porphyridii, H. alexandrii, and the
Labrenzia sp. all had complete phenylacetate degradation pathways to produce acetyl−CoA which may serve as a precursor to acetate synthesis, and
O. stylonematis, S. saemankumensis, R. porphyridii, R. mucosus, A. albus, O. alexandrii, M. adhaerens, and the
Labrenzia sp. had complete pathways for leucine degradation to acetyl−CoA as well.
The microbiome of algal species has been shown to contribute necessary vitamins and products to dinoflagellate species, the most recognized being cyanocobalamin (B12) [
80]. Based on our metabolic findings, the introduction of B vitamins into dinoflagellate growth media does not appear to be redundant with the biosynthetic abilities of the microbiome. The vitamins added to our ESAW media preparation include biotin (H), B12, and thiamine (B1) to increase growth rate and final yield [
81]. Of the bacterial genomes assembled, only the
M. adhaerens genome had a pathway identified to synthesize biotin, and this species was in very low abundance. The only highly abundant species with aerobic and anaerobic pathways for the synthesis of B12 were
R. mucosus and
O. stylonematis, which were significantly more abundant in the antibiotic-treated cultures, and their decline without antibiotics may have been a factor in the cell mortality of
Amphidinium as the nutrients in the culture diminished over the log phase. Only
A. albus within the highly abundant bacterial species had a pathway for vitamin B1 synthesis, and yet this was only through a salvage pathway which utilizes precursors or similar compounds in the surrounding media for B1 biosynthesis [
82].
The Planctomycetota bacteria
SM1A02 is the only assembled genome in the
Amphidinium culture to have full pathways for menaquinone (vitamin K2) biosynthesis. Although vitamin K1 is conventionally known as a redox cofactor in plants and green algae, vitamin K2 can also be a secondary electron acceptor of PSI in some algal and archaeal species [
83]. Vitamin K2 can also shuttle electrons between different respiratory complexes in anaerobic respiration or aerobic respiration in a microaerophilic environment [
84]. The effect of vitamin K2 bioavailability for dinoflagellate species remains to be seen.
Author Contributions
Conceptualization, M. Judd, J. Wira, A.R. Place, and T. Bachvaroff; methodology, M. Judd, J. Wira, and T. Bachvaroff; software, M. Judd, J. Wira, and T. Bachvaroff; validation, M. Judd, J. Wira, and T. Bachvaroff; formal analysis, M. Judd and T. Bachvaroff; investigation, M. Judd, J. Wira, and T. Bachvaroff; resources, M. Judd, J. Wira, A.R. Place, and T. Bachvaroff; data curation, M. Judd and T. Bachvaroff; writing—original draft preparation, M. Judd; writing—review and editing, M. Judd, J. Wira, A.R. Place, and T. Bachvaroff; visualization, M. Judd and T. Bachvaroff; supervision, A.R. Place and T. Bachvaroff; project administration, A.R. Place and T. Bachvaroff; funding acquisition, A.R. Place and T. Bachvaroff. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.