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Heterotrophic Cultures of Galdieria phlegrea Shift to Autotrophy in the Presence or Absence of Glycerol

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Abstract

Despite being an autotrophic organism, Galdieria phlegrea (Galdieriaceae) has the ability to use glycerol thereby switching to heterotrophy in the dark and mixotrophy in the presence of light. To examine cellular changes during the switch to mixotrophic metabolism and finally to photoautotrophic metabolism, heterotrophic cells of G. phlegrea were exposed to light and split into two subcultures. Cells exposed only to light but cultivated in medium containing glycerol grew with a recovery time of at least 3 days. In a parallel culture, the simultaneous removal of glycerol from the culture medium and light exposure allowed Galdieria cells to rapidly recover their growth rate due to their ability to rapidly absorb ammonium from the medium. However, contrary to expectation, a higher content of total soluble protein was observed in light-exposed cells cultivated in medium containing glycerol compared to cells cultivated without glycerol. In addition, the level of Rubisco in cells exposed to light and cultivated without glycerol was higher than those in cells cultivated in medium containing glycerol, indicating full photosynthetic functionality after only 3 days of light treatment. The greater chlorophyll a content confirms that the photosynthetic activity of cells cultivated without glycerol recovers earlier than that of heterotrophic cells exposed to light but still cultivated in medium containing glycerol.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the program STAR-2018 (Sostegno Territoriale alle Attività di Ricerca) funded by University of Naples Federico II and Compagnia di San Paolo.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Universi`ty of Naples Federico II, via Cinthia, 80126, Napoli, Italy

    Giovanna Salbitani, Sabrina Cipolletta, Vincenza Vona & Simona Carfagna

  2. Department of Agriculture, Environmental and Food, University of Molise, Via F. De Sanctis, 86100, Campobasso, Italy

    Catello Di Martino

Authors
  1. Giovanna Salbitani
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  2. Sabrina Cipolletta
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  3. Vincenza Vona
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  4. Catello Di Martino
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  5. Simona Carfagna
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Correspondence to Simona Carfagna.

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344_2020_10109_MOESM1_ESM.eps

Supplementary file1 (EPS 52 kb) Fig. S1 Ammonium uptake (concentration change in mM) from culture medium by LE cells of G. phlegrea in the presence of different concentrations of glycerol (5, 10 and 20 g L-1). Error bars represent the standard deviation of the mean (n=3).

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Salbitani, G., Cipolletta, S., Vona, V. et al. Heterotrophic Cultures of Galdieria phlegrea Shift to Autotrophy in the Presence or Absence of Glycerol. J Plant Growth Regul 40, 371–378 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00344-020-10109-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00344-020-10109-0

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