A reference or ‘type’ strain in the cyanobacterial taxonomy is an isolate, which was used to describe a novel genus or a species, and which will serve as a reference to assign new isolates to this novel genus or species. The ULC Cyanobacterial collection harbors now several strains, which are the references of newly described taxa reflecting the diversity and the rich ecological background, which is represented in the collection.
This diverse set of reference strains includes the ones for the species Plectolyngbya hodgsonii, Shackletoniella antarctica, Timaviella circinata and T. karstica, Cephalothrix komarekiana and Parakomarekiella sesnandensis. Plectolyngbya hodgsonii (ULC009T) is a false-branching cyanobacterium with thin trichomes, which are sometimes arranged in bundles of multiple trichomes in one polysaccharidic sheath. The genus is endemic in Antarctic continental lakes (Taton et al., 2011). ULC037T is the reference of Shackletoniella antarctica and has a polar distribution. It occurs in flowing waters or builds thick benthic mats in lakes, where it forms short and long thin filaments with thin sheaths (Strunecky et al., 2020). The species Timaviella circinata and T. karstica (ULC401T, ULC402T) were isolated from the ‘Lampenflora’ of the Giant Cave in Italy. The filaments are red-brownish and have trichomes with false branching, which are slightly constricted at the cross wall and which are surrounded by a multilayered colorless sheath (Sciuto et al. 2017). By using a multifaceted approach, the genus Cephalothrix komarekiana (ULC718T) could be distinguished from other members of the polyphyletic genus Phormidium. This genus consists of cylindrical and straight trichomes in a firm sheath that are slightly attenuated and bent at the end. It was isolated from an alkaline lake in the Brazilian Pantanal wetlands (da Silva Malone et al., 2017). Parakomarekiella sesnandensis (ULC591T) was isolated from the biodeteriorated walls of the Old Cathedral of Coimbra (UNESCO World Heritage Site), and is morphologically and phylogenetically close to Komarekiella, but was placed in a separated genus-level clade (Soares et al., 2020).
Cephalothrix komarekiana (ULC718T)
Furthermore to our knowledge, the ULC collection harbors the only cultivated representative of the genus Snowella sp., ULC335, which commonly occurs in temperate lakes. This strain was isolated from a bloom sample taken during the BelSPO project B-BLOOMS2 from Lake Falemprise in the Eau d'Heure lake complex in Belgium.
Recently, the BLCC (Berthold-Laughinghouse Culture Collection) deposited multiple strains with several novel taxa from marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems in Florida, a subtropical to tropical climate region. The goal of these isolations carried out during several projects was to describe and characterize novel cyanobacteria from different ecosystems. For the marine strains, an additional aim was to study their production of bioactive compounds in collaboration with researchers in medicinal chemistry from the Smithsonian Institute.
The diversity of cyanobacteria in coastal sediments and mats is huge and still largely unexplored. Therefore, many deposits originate from coastal areas like the newly described genera and species Johannesbaptistia floridana sp. nov. (ULC590T) isolated as epipelic from benthic coastal substrata (Berthold et al., 2020), Neolyngbya biscaynensis sp. nov. (ULC530T) and Affixifilum floridanum gen. nov., sp. nov. (ULC525T) coming from marine benthic cyanobacterial mats (Lefler et al. 2021), and Leptochromothrix gen. nov. (ULC597T), Ophiophycus gen. nov. (ULC599T) and Vermifilum gen. nov. (ULC454T) purified from benthic mats of mangrove forests (Berthold et al., 2021).
Johannesbaptistia floridana (ULC590T) Vermifilum ionodolium (ULC454T)
During a study that investigated the identity of nuisance Cyanobacteria occurring in greenhouses and developed new algaecides against those, several isolates were described as novel species, including Iningainema tapete sp. nov. (ULC575T), which is capable of producing two isoforms of nodularin in high quantities and therefore forming a threat to the food production in greenhouses (Berthold et al., 2021) as well as the novel species Brasilonema fioreae sp. nov. (ULC548T), B. santannae sp. nov. (ULC544T) and B. wernerae sp. nov. (ULC573T) (Barbosa et al. 2021).
These rather unexplored ecosystems of benthic coastal areas and greenhouses in tropical areas are a potential source of novel secondary compounds. Indeed, it has been shown that strains of Neolyngbya and Brasilonema are able to produce compounds with antibiotic and antifungal properties (Sanz et al., 2015; Caires et al. 2018).
These reference strains as well as other cyanoabacterial strains can be ordered at the ULC collection via the online portal: https://bccm.belspo.be/shopping-cart. If you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact us under bccm.ulc@uliege.be.
T indicates that the strain is the reference (or ‘type’) strain of the species
References:
Barbosa, M., Berthold, D.E., Lefler, F.W., and Laughinghouse IV, H.D. (2021). Diversity of the genus Brasilonema (Nostocales, Cyanobacteria) in plant nurseries of central Florida (USA) with the description of three new species: B. fioreae sp. nov., B. santannae sp. nov. and B. wernerae sp. nov. Fottea 21, 82-99. doi: 10.5507/fot.2020.019
Berthold, D.E., Lefler, F.W., Huang, I-S., Abdulla, H.A.N., Zimba, P., and Laughinghouse IV, H.D. (2021). Iningainema tapete sp. nov. (Scytonemataceae, Cyanobacteria) from greenhouses in central Florida (USA) produces two types of nodularin with biosynthetic potential for microcystin-LR and anabaenopeptins. Harmful Algae 101: 101969. doi: 10.1016/j.hal.2020.101969
Berthold, D.E., Lefler, F.W., and Laughinghouse IV, H.D. (2021). Untangling filamentous marine cyanobacterial diversity from the coast of South Florida with the description of Vermifilaceae fam. nov. and three new genera: Leptochromothrix gen. nov., Ophiophycus gen. nov., and Vermifilum gen. nov. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. In press. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2020.107010
Berthold, D.E., Lefler, F.W., Werner, V.R., and Laughinghouse IV, H.D. (2020). Johannesbaptistia floridana sp. nov. (Chroococcales, Cyanobacteria), a novel marine cyanobacterium from coastal South Florida (USA). Fottea 20:152-159. doi: 10.5507/fot.2020.008.
Caires, T.A., da Silva, A.M.S., Vasconcelos, V.M., Affe, H.M.J., de Souza Neta, L.C., Boness, H.V.M., Sant'Anna, C.L., and Nunes J.M.C. (2018). Biotechnological potential of Neolyngbya (Cyanobacteria), a new marine benthic filamentous genus from Brazil. Algal Res. 36. 1-9. doi: 10.1016/j.algal.2018.10.001.
Da Silva Malone, C.F., Rigonato, J., Laughinghouse, H.D., Schmidt, É.C., Bouzon, Z.L., Wilmotte, A., Fiore, M.F., Sant'Anna, C.L. (2015). Cephalothrix gen. nov. (Cyanobacteria): towards an intraspecific phylogenetic evaluation by multilocus analyses. Int. J. Syst. Evol. Microbiol. 65, 2993-3007. doi: 10.1099/ijs.0.000369.
Lefler, F. W., Berthold, D. E., and Laughinghouse, D.A. (2021). The occurrence of Affixifilum gen. nov. and Neolyngbya (Oscillatoriaceae) in South Florida (USA), with the description of A. floridanum sp. nov. and N. biscaynensis sp. nov. J. Phyco. doi: 10.1111/jpy.13065.
Sanz, M., Andreote, A.P.D., Fiore, M.F., Dörr, F.A. and Pinto, E. (2015). Structural characterization of new peptide variants produced by Cyanobacteria from the Brazilian Atlantic coastal forest using liquid chromatography coupled to quadrupole time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry. Mar. Drugs 13, 3892-3919. doi:10.3390/md13063892
Sciuto, K., Moschin, E., and Moro, I. (2017). Cryptic cyanobacterial diversity in the giant cave (Trieste, Italy): The new genus Timaviella (Leptolyngbyaceae). Cryptogamie Algol 38, 285-323.
Soares, F., Ramos, R., Trovão, J., Cardoso, S.M., Tiago, I., and Portugal, A. (2020). Parakomarekiella sesnandensis gen. et sp. nov. (Nostocales, Cyanobacteria) isolated from the Old Cathedral of Coimbra, Portugal (UNESCO World Heritage Site). Eur. J. Phycol. doi: 10.1080/09670262.2020.1817568
Strunecky, O., Raabova, L., Bernardova, A., Ivanova, A.P., Semanova, A., Crossley, J., and Kaftan, D. (2020). Diversity of cyanobacteria at the Alaska North Slope with description of two new genera: Gibliniella and Shackletoniella. FEMS Microbiol. Ecol. 96:fiz189. doi: 10.1093/femsec/fiz189