Matthias Hess’ project will develop a Functional Encyclopedia of Cyanobacteria to better understand photosynthetic microbial communities and their central role in carbon and nitrogen cycling. (Mar- Libault; Aleksandr Jurkevic, University of Missouri)
The DOE JGI’s Genomic Encyclopedia of Bacteria and Archaea (GEBA) project has been filling the genomic gaps in the prokaryotic tree of life. One offshoot of the project, called GEBA-Cyano, focuses on improving the understanding of the genetic basis of cyanobacterial ecophysiology. Cyanobacteria are eminently DOE mission-relevant organisms, playing key roles in global carbon and nitrogen cycling, as platforms for green biotechnology, and as biofuel feedstock. To extend and complement the GEBA and GEBA-Cyano projects, the researchers plan to conduct phylogenetic and functional analyses of mixed populations of cyanobacteria and heterotrophic prokaryotes collected from extreme environments. The project will provide new insights for photosynthetic systems across different scales – from molecular, to single cell, to population, and to ecosystem scales. The results obtained are expected to enable researchers to determine whether such isolation efforts can lead to the isolation of viable microbial specimens that have relevance to DOE missions and are of value to the scientific community.
Proposer’s Name: Matthias Hess