{"id":455,"date":"2020-09-28T21:11:15","date_gmt":"2020-09-29T01:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/bvanmooy\/?page_id=455"},"modified":"2020-09-29T17:09:23","modified_gmt":"2020-09-29T21:09:23","slug":"virus-inspired-lipid-mediated-transfection-and-genetic-manipulation-of-the-marine-coccolithophore-emiliania-huxleyi","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/bvanmooy\/projects\/virus-inspired-lipid-mediated-transfection-and-genetic-manipulation-of-the-marine-coccolithophore-emiliania-huxleyi\/","title":{"rendered":"Virus-Inspired, Lipid-Mediated Transfection and Genetic Manipulation of the Marine Coccolithophore, Emiliania huxleyi"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h1>Virus-Inspired, Lipid-Mediated Transfection and Genetic Manipulation of the Marine Coccolithophore, <em>Emiliania huxleyi<\/em><\/h1>\nMarine phytoplankton collectively contribute more than half of the global primary productivity yet represent &lt;1% of Earth\u2019s biomass. The dominant eukaryotic members of this group are diatoms, dinoflagellates, and haptophytes. Haptophytes, which include coccolithophores, contribute approximately one-third of the total marine calcium carbonate production through the biomineralization of their calcite-based coccoliths and have a profound influence on the marine carbon and sulfur cycles. In addition, the coccolithophore, <em>Emiliania huxleyi <\/em>and its associated virus (Coccolithovirus; EhV) has emerged as the prominent model system for investing algal host-viral interactions. Despite its unique organismal features of <em>E. huxleyi <\/em>that pose fundamental opportunities to elucidate genomes to phenomes relationships\u2014a diverse pan-genome, biomineralized cell morphology, multifaceted ecosystem interactions, host-virus interactions, biogeochemical relevance, and global distribution\u2014 a viable genetic manipulation method still does not exist <em>for this model coccolithophore<\/em>. This proposal aims to address this gap by developing a novel, lipid-based transfection method in <em>E. huxleyi <\/em>that takes advantage of the well-characterized lipid-mediated interaction between <em>E. huxleyi <\/em>and EhV. Specific goals are to: 1) generate expression constructs for the overexpression of reporter genes driven by <em>E. huxleyi <\/em>or EhV-derived promoters; 2) identify and purify novel lipids associated with EhVs; 3) develop a method for associating and\/or encapsulating plasmid expression constructs in liposomes and EhV-derived virosomes (liposomes composed of viral envelope glycoproteins and lipids); and 4) perform transfection experiments in <em>E. huxleyi <\/em>with reporter gene constructs.\n\t<h3>Funding Agency<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nsf.gov\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/templates\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/nsf.png\" alt=\"nsf\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n\t<h3>Collaborators<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Kay Bidle (Rutgers University, lead PI)<\/li>\n<li>Kim Thamatrakoln, (Rutgers University, co-PI)<\/li>\n<li>Don Hirsh (The College of New Jersey)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\t<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/bvanmooy\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/98\/2020\/09\/virosome.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2382\" height=\"2510\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Virus-Inspired, Lipid-Mediated Transfection and Genetic Manipulation of the Marine Coccolithophore, Emiliania huxleyi Marine phytoplankton collectively contribute more than half of the global primary productivity yet represent &lt;1% of Earth\u2019s biomass. The dominant eukaryotic members of this group are diatoms, dinoflagellates, and haptophytes. Haptophytes, which include coccolithophores, contribute approximately one-third of the total marine calcium carbonate&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"parent":13,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/bvanmooy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/455"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/bvanmooy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/bvanmooy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/bvanmooy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/bvanmooy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/bvanmooy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":477,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/bvanmooy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/455\/revisions\/477"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/bvanmooy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/bvanmooy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}