Karenia milkimotoi
Karenia mikimotoi
Classification
Eukarya; Sar; Alveolata; Dinophyceae; Gymnodiniales; Kareniaceae
Species
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NCBI: [1] |
Dinoflagellate Karenia mikimotoi
Description and Significance
Karenia mikimotoi is a dorsoventrally flattened photosynthetic algae that when activated appears as a yellow-brownish color. These cells either lack a true chloroplast or have a shrunken chloroplast. Once activated it grows rapidly in cold water. Intense algae growth has been connected to large fish kills and marine animal kills. The marine animals killed can include fish, crabs, sea urchins, octopus, whelks, chitons, and bivalves (Iwataki et al., 2022). This is important because fish kills are harmful to marine environments and the people who use the marine environments to survive.
Genome Structure
Members of the Karenia family are eukaryotes, meaning their genome structure is linear. Of the Karenia family K. mikimotoi has the third largest genome being 53.4.1 ± 3.05 pg DNA/cell. Of the sequenced DNA of K. mikimotoi one chromosome is considered the AG-chromosome due to the amount of arginine and guanine it contains. It was also found that K. mikimotoi contains numerous sections of recombinant DNA and nucleolar organizer regions (Cuadrado et al., 2019).
Cell Structure, Metabolism and Life Cycle
(Discuss cell structure)
K. mikimotoi gains energy through hydrolysis reactions of ATP to ADP. However, in recent years there has been a decrease of phosphorus in the oceans where K. mikimotoi is mainly found. This decrease has led to an increase of the utilization of dissolved organic phosphorus to create ATP. (add more)
Ecology and Pathogenesis
K. mikimotoi was first noticed in the coastal waters of Japan in the 1930’s. Since then there have been more documented cases in the coastal waters surrounding Japan, Ireland, Norway, and New Zealand. K. mikimotoi is a bloom-forming dinoflagellate that infects fish causing large fish kills and can affect people that eat infected fish as well. These algae blooms also affect shellfish and other invertebrates that habit the infected waters.
References
[Cuadrado, Á., De Bustos, A., & Figueroa, R. I. (2019, February 28). Chromosomal markers in the genus karenia: Towards an understanding of the evolution of the chromosomes, life cycle patterns and phylogenetic relationships in dinoflagellates. Scientific reports. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6395649/
Karenia Mikimotoi (Miyake & Kominami ex oda) G. hansen & Ø. moestrup. Karenia mikimotoi (Miyake & Kominami ex Oda) G. Hansen & Ø. Moestrup | Nordic Microalgae. http://nordicmicroalgae.org/taxon/Karenia%20mikimotoi
U.S. National Library of Medicine. Taxonomy browser (candidatus nitrosarchaeum limnium BG20). National Center for Biotechnology Information. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/Browser/wwwtax.cgi?id=859192 ]
Author
Page authored by Mackenzie H. Deck, student of Prof. Bradley Tolar at UNC Wilmington.
