Home • Ostreococcus tauri RCC4221 v3.0
Ostreococcus tauri RCC4221
Ostreococcus tauri strain OTH95, photo courtesy of Hervé Moreau, Laboratoire Arago

RCC4221

Ostreococcus belongs to the Mamiellophyceae, an early-diverging class within the green plant lineage, and is reported as a globally abundant, single-celled alga thriving in the upper (illuminated) water column of the oceans. The most striking feature of O. tauri and related species is their minimal cellular organization: a naked, nearly 1-micron cell, lacking flagella, with a single chloroplast and mitochondrion.

While comparative genomics of Ostreococcus strains have unravelled four different species in this genus, O. tauri, O. lucimarinus, O. sp RCC809 and O. mediterraneus, the intra-specific level of diversity in these enigmatic organisms is yet unknown. Population genomics analysis will help to understand the role of standing genomic variation in environmental adaptation of these microorganisms.

This portal gives access to the updated genome of O. tauri RCC4221, obtained by improving the historical Sanger-sequenced genome sequence with high-coverage Illumina sequencing [1], and the nuclear polymorphisms obtained from re-sequencing 13 O. tauri strains (CSP-129) [2].


Publications
[1] An improved genome of the model marine alga Ostreococcus tauri unfolds by assessing Illumina de novo assemblies. Blanc-Mathieu R, Verhelst B, Derelle E, Rombauts S, Bouget FY, Carré I, Château A, Eyre-Walker A, Grimsley N, Moreau H, Piégu B, Rivals E, Schackwitz W, Van de Peer Y, Piganeau G. BMC Genomics. 2014 Dec 13;15:1103.
doi: 10.1186/1471-2164-15-1103.

[2] An improved genome of the model marine alga Ostreococcus tauri unfolds by assessing Illumina de novo assemblies. Blanc-Mathieu R, Verhelst B, Derelle E, Rombauts S, Bouget FY, Carré I, Château A, Eyre-Walker A, Grimsley N, Moreau H, Piégu B, Rivals E, Schackwitz W, Van de Peer Y, Piganeau G. BMC Genomics. 2014 Dec 13;15:1103.
doi: 10.1186/1471-2164-15-1103.

Genome Reference(s)