2013
The genome of Emiliania huxleyi, an emblematic species of marine phytoplankton, has been sequenced for the first time by an international consortium including French teams from CNRS, UPMC, INRA, Aix-Marseille Université and ENS(1). The scientists found that the genome of this extremely abundant single-celled microorganism contains one third more genes than the human genome, but is twenty times smaller. Another surprising finding is the complexity of this genome, which gives Emiliania a high adaptation capacity. Sequencing was performed at the Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute in the US and results were published in Nature on 13 June 2013.
(1) The laboratory ‘Adaptation et diversité en milieu marin’ (CNRS/UPMC) at the Station Biologique de Roscoff (CNRS/UPMC) and laboratory ‘Information génomique et structurale’ (CNRS/AMU), Institut de biologie de l'Ecole normale supérieure (CNRS/ENS/Inserm) and Unité de recherches en Génomique-Info (INRA)