Free-Living, Heterotrophic Protists – Exploring Genomic and Metabolic Capabilities (ProMeta).

原核生物的参考基因组在探索它们的代谢能力和生态功能方面非常有用。然而，非真菌微真核生物(原生生物)的参考基因组很少，导致对原生生物功能的了解很差。真核生物基因组复杂而庞大，这使得它们的探索对当前的测序技术具有挑战性。更有问题的是原核生物的污染，当试图对细菌捕食者的基因组进行排序时，这是无法避免的。因此，现有的原生生物基因组大多来自寄生虫或藻类，自由生活的异养原生生物仍然被忽视。最近发现的心形酵母菌为探索自由生活的异养原生生物的基因组提供了一个独特的机会。南方根霉属于真核生物的根霉属，是一个与植物具有相似多样性的分类单元，是Sarcomonadea纲的一个物种。高度多样化的Sarcomonadea可能代表了最丰富的陆地细菌捕食者。与大多数其他Sarcomonadea物种不同的是，S.comonadea不以细菌为食，但生长方式与酵母相似，这使得在没有环境细菌的情况下进行培养成为可能。这代表了对Sarcomonadea基因组进行排序并探索其新陈代谢能力的独特可能性。我们的目标是对自由生活、异养的根状杆菌(WP1)的第一个高质量基因组进行测序，确定和量化哪些基因在不同的食物来源(WP2)下上调，并通过进一步分离、条形码和描述新菌株(WP3)来探索这个令人兴奋的分类群的未知多样性(WP3)。

Reference genomes of prokaryotes have been immensely useful in exploring their metabolic capabilities and ecological functioning. However, reference genomes of non-fungal microeukaryotes (protists) are scarce, resulting in poor understanding of protistan functions. Eukaryotic genomes are complex and large, making their exploration challenging with current sequencing technologies. Even more problematic are contaminations by prokaryotes, which cannot be avoided when attempting to sequence the genomes of bacteria predators. Consequently, the majority of existing protistan genomes are from parasites or algae, and freeliving, heterotrophic protists remain neglected. The recent discovery of Saccharomycomorpha psychra provides a unique opportunity to explore a genome of a free-living, heterotrophic protist. S. psychra belongs to the eukaryotic infrakingdom Rhizaria, a taxon with a similar diversity as plants, and is a species of the class Sarcomonadea. The highly diverse Sarcomonadea likely represent the most abundant predators of terrestrial bacteria. Unlike most other Sarcomonadea species, S. psychra does not feed on bacteria but grows similar to yeast, making it possible to be cultured without environmental bacteria. This represents a unique possibility to sequence a Sarcomonadea genome and explore its metabolic capabilities. Our goal is to sequence the first high-quality genome of a free-living, heterotrophic Rhizaria (WP1), determine and quantify which genes are upregulated under distinct food sources (WP2), and explore the yet uncharted diversity of this exciting taxon by further isolating, barcoding, and describing new strains (WP3).