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Self-supporting artificial system of the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and the ascomycetous fungus Alternaria infectoria

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Abstract

A long-living (of up to several years) bipartite system was constructed between the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and the ascomycetous fungus Alternaria infectoria. The metabolic cooperation between the two organisms was tested with infecting A. infectoria hyphae into nitrogen starving yellow C. reinhardtii culture. After the infection, a slow greening process of the algal cells was observed, which was studied by measuring the increasing chlorophyll content, the appearance of chlorophyll-protein complexes – using 77 K fluorescence spectroscopy, and the measurement of photosynthetic oxygen production. Transmission electron microscopy and laser scanning microscopy images showed that no direct physical contacts were formed between the algal cells and the hyphae in the long-living symbiosis but they were joint in a mucilaginous bed allowing diffusion processes for metabolic cooperation. The increased free amino acid content of the medium of the long-living bipartite cultures’ indicated possible nitrogen supply of hyphal origin, which allowed the re-greening of the algal cells. The results of this work underline the importance of symbiosis-like stable metabolic coexistence, which ensures survival under extreme environmental conditions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Plant Anatomy, Eötvös Loránd University, Pázmány Péter sétány 1/C, Budapest, 1117, Hungary

    Janka Simon, Annamária Kósa, Károly Bóka, Pál Vági, Béla Böddi & Éva Preininger

  2. Department of Food Chemistry and Nutritional Science, Szent István University, Somlói út 14-16, Budapest, 1118, Hungary

    Lívia Simon-Sarkadi & Zsuzsa Mednyánszky

  3. Plant Protection Institute, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, P O Box 102, Budapest, 1525, Hungary

    Áron N. Horváth

  4. Department of Plant Physiology and Molecular Plant Biology, Eötvös Loránd University, Pázmány Péter sétány 1/C, Budapest, 1117, Hungary

    Péter Nyitrai

Authors
  1. Janka Simon
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  2. Annamária Kósa
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Correspondence to Janka Simon.

Electronic Supplementary Material

ESM 1

Phenotypical observations of regreening Chlamydomonas reinhardtii colonies after 0 day (a), 1 month (b), 4 months (c), 8 months (d) and 16-month-old stable symbiosis (e) on nitrogen- and carbon-free medium (JPEG 57 kb)

ESM 2

Confocal laser scanning microscope images of the structure of the symbiotic system and the physical relation between the partners in a stable long-living Chlamydomonas-Alternaria culture. Depth of investigation: 29 μm – Bar: 20 μm (JPEG 1.91 mb)

ESM 3

Degreening of the algal culture after 0 (a), 7 (b), 18 (c), 30 (d) days on N and C free Az medium. (JPEG 6.49 mb)

ESM 4

Parameters of the statistical analyses. [α Games-Howell’s post hoc test was run, parallel with the Tukey’s HSD test, when equal variances were not assumed. β One-sample Student’s t-test was run, when some of the values were equal to zero (with a test value of 0).] (DOCX 18 kb)

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Simon, J., Kósa, A., Bóka, K. et al. Self-supporting artificial system of the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and the ascomycetous fungus Alternaria infectoria . Symbiosis 71, 199–209 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13199-016-0430-y

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