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

原核生物的参考基因组在探索其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少。真核生物基因组是复杂和庞大的，使其探索具有挑战性的现有测序技术。更大的问题是原核生物的污染，当试图对细菌捕食者的基因组进行测序时，这是无法避免的。因此，大多数现有的原生生物基因组来自寄生虫或藻类，而自由生活的异养原生生物仍然被忽视。最近发现的Saccharomycomorpha psychra提供了一个独特的机会来探索一个自由生活的异养原生生物的基因组。S. psychra属真核植物根茎亚纲，是一个与植物多样性相似的分类群，是肉瘤纲的一种。高度多样化的Sarcomonadea可能代表了陆地细菌最丰富的捕食者。与大多数其他种类的肉瘤不同，S. psychra不以细菌为食，而是像酵母一样生长，这使得它可以在没有环境细菌的情况下培养。这代表了一种独特的可能性来测序肉瘤的基因组和探索其代谢能力。我们的目标是对一个自由生活的异养根瘤菌（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食物来源下上调（WP2），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单元尚未绘制的多样性。

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).