DNA Reveals Diatom's Complexity

摘要

Diatoms are an enigma. Neither plant nor animal, they share biochemical features of both. Though simple single-celled algae, they are covered with elegant casings sculpted from silica. Now a team of 45 biologists has taken a big step toward resolving the paradoxical nature of these odd microbes. They have se-qaenced the genome of Thalassiosira pseudonana, which lives in salt water and is a lab favorite among diatom experts. The work should prove useful to ecologists, geologists, and even biomedical researchers, says Edward Theriot, a diatom systematist at the University of Texas, Austin: "We've just jumped a generation ahead by having this kind of understanding of this genome."