The Team of Diatom Functional Genomics (R. Annunziata, A. Ritter, A.E. Fortunato, A. Manzotti, S. Cheminant Navarro, J.P. Bouly and A. Falciatore), in collaboration with the team of Biology of Genomes (Nicolas Agier) and Marco Cosentino Lagomarsino at the LCQB characterized the circadian rhythms of the marine diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum and identified the bHLH-PAS protein RITMO1 as the first known regulator of these rhythms in these algae. This study, published on Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) adds new elements to our understanding of diatom biology and offers new perspectives to elucidate timekeeping mechanisms in marine algae.

The Diatom Functional Genomics Team (L Taddei, GR Stella, JP Bouly, M. Jaubert and A. Falciatore) reported novel strategies to deal with environmental light stress in marine diatoms.  Their results recently published on Plant Physiology reveal that diatoms modulate non-photochemical quenching of excess excitation by activating different members of the LHCX protein family, with different light intensity activation thresholds and different patterns of association with photosystem II. This leads to mechanistically different and physically segregated excess energy quenching processes, as required for proper light-stress acclimation in the extremely variable conditions of the oceans.

The team of Diatom Functional Genomics just published a paper describing how marine diatoms efficiently attune acclimation responses in highly variable ocean environments. L.Taddei*, G.R. Stella*, A. Rogato, B. Bailleul, A.E. Fortunato, R. Annunziata, R. Sanges, M. Thaler, B. Lepetit, J. Lavaud, M. Jaubert, G. Finazzi, J.P. Bouly, A. Falciatore. Multi-signal control of expression of the LHCX protein family in marine diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum.  Journal Experimental Botany, in press.*co-first-authors