Numerous species of marine dinoflagellates synthesize the potent environmental neurotoxic alkaloid, saxitoxin, the agent of the human illness, paralytic shellfish poisoning. In addition, certain freshwater species of cyanobacteria also synthesize the same toxic compound, with the biosynthetic pathway and genes responsible being recently reported. Three theories have been postulated to explain t...

Recent field studies indicate that dinoflagellates are key degraders of copepod fecal pellets. This study is the first to publish direct evidence of pellet grazing by dinoflagellates. Feeding and growth on copepod fecal pellets were studied for both heterotrophic (4 species) and mixotrophic dinoflagellates (3 species) using a combination of classic incubation experiments and video recordings of...

Dinoflagellates are the large group of marine phytoplankton with primary studies interest regarding their symbiosis with coral reef and the abilities to form harmful algae blooms (HABs). Toxin produced by dinoflagellates during events of HABs cause severe negative impact both in the economy and health sector. However, attempts to understand the dinoflagellates genomic features are hindered by t...

Dinoflagellates are of great importance to the marine ecosystem, yet scant details of how gene expression is regulated at the transcriptional level are available. Transcription is of interest in the context of the chromatin structure in the dinoflagellates as it shows many differences from more typical eukaryotic cells. Here we canvas recent transcriptome profiles to identify the molecular buil...

Dinoflagellates are essential components in marine ecosystems, and they possess two dissimilar flagella to facilitate movement. Dinoflagellates are major components of marine food webs and of extreme importance in balancing the ecosystem energy flux in oceans. They have been reported to be the primary cause of harmful algae bloom (HABs) events around the world, causing seafood poisoning and the...

Okadaic acid (OA) and the related dinophysistoxins are isolated from dinoflagellates of the genus Prorocentrum and Dinophysis. Bacteria of the Roseobacter group have been associated with okadaic acid producing dinoflagellates and have been previously implicated in OA production. Analysis of 16S rRNA libraries reveals that Roseobacter are the most abundant bacteria associated with OA producing d...

Miseq sequencing and data analysis for the actin gene and v9 region of 18S rDNA of 7 simulated samples consisting of different mixture of dinoflagellates and diatoms were carried out. Not all the species were detectable in all the 18S v9 samples, and sequence percent in all the v9 samples were not consistent with the corresponding cell percent which may suggest that 18S rDNA copy number in diff...

We investigated the distribution of bioluminescent dinoflagellates in the Patagonian Shelf region using "universal" PCR primers for the dinoflagellate luciferase gene. Luciferase gene sequences and single cell PCR tests, in conjunction with taxonomic identification by microscopy, allowed us to identify and quantify bioluminescent dinoflagellates. We compared these data to coincidental discrete ...

In alveolate evolution, dinoflagellates have developed many unique features, including the cell that has epicone and hypocone, the undulating transverse flagellum. However, it remains unclear how these features evolved. The early branching dinoflagellates so far investigated such as Hematodinium, Amoebophrya and Oxyrrhis marina differ in many ways from of core dinoflagellates, or dinokaryotes. ...