A large colonial choanoflagellate from Mono Lake harbors live bacteria

• DOI: 10.1128/mbio.01623-24
• Publication Date: 2024-08-14T13:01:33Z
• Authors: K. H. Hake; P. T. West; K. McDonald; D. Laundon; J. Reyes-Rivera; A. Garcia De Las ...; C. Feng; P. Burkhardt; D. J. Richter; J. F. Banfield; N. King
• Keywords: Alphaproteobacteria

ABSTRACT As the closest living relatives of animals, choanoflagellates offer insights into ancestry animal cell physiology. Here, we report isolation and characterization a colonial choanoflagellate from Mono Lake, California. The forms large spherical colonies that are an order magnitude larger than those formed by closely related Salpingoeca rosetta . In cultures maintained in laboratory, lumen colony is filled with branched network extracellular matrix colonized bacteria, including diverse Gammaproteobacteria Alphaproteobacteria. We propose to erect Barroeca monosierra gen. nov., sp. nov. Hake, Burkhardt, Richter, King accommodate this extremophile choanoflagellate. physical association between bacteria B. culture presents new experimental model for investigating interactions among eukaryotes. Future work will investigate nature these wild populations mechanisms underpinning colonization spheres bacteria. IMPORTANCE diversity organisms live extreme environment Lake (California, USA) limited. sought whether choanoflagellates, exist hypersaline, alkaline, arsenic-rich environment. repeatedly isolated members species choanoflagellate, which have named Characterization revealed it containing co-isolated providing opportunity underlying associations eukaryotes