Deciphering coccolith formation: advanced microscopy insights from the biomineralization of Gephyrocapsa huxleyi.
11 affiliations
- 1School of Chemistry , The University of Edinburgh , Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.
- 2Max Planck Institute for Sustainable Materials, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft , Dusseldorf, Germany.
- 3Photon Science Division, Paul Scherrer Institut PSI , Villigen, AG, Switzerland.
- 4Experiments Division, ALBA Synchrotron , Barcelona, Spain.
- 5Swiss Light Source, Paul Scherrer Institut PSI , Villigen, AG, Switzerland.
- 6Institute of Physics, EPFL , Lausanne, VD, Switzerland.
- 7School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Edinburgh , Edinburgh, UK.
- 8Discovery Research Platform for Hidden Cell Biology, The University of Edinburgh , Edinburgh, UK.
- 9Institut Fresnel, CNRS, Aix-Marseille University , Marseille, France.
- 10School of GeoSciences, Grant Institute, The University of Edinburgh , Edinburgh, UK.
- 11Institut Fresnel Marseille , Marseille, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France.
Abstract
Coccolithophores are unicellular marine phytoplankton that produce complex and intricately shaped mineralized scales called coccoliths. Coccoliths are produced in an intracellular vesicle where crystal nucleation occurs, from which several individual calcite units develop with anisotropic crystallographic facets, prompting studies into the cellular mechanisms that control crystal growth within the cell. Here, we characterize those morphological developments in three dimensions that occur during the formation of coccoliths by the species Gephyrocapsa huxleyi using cryo-ptychographic X-ray computed tomography. This technique is ideally suited to study coccolith mineral development, as intracellular structures can be imaged intact in their native state without needing to disrupt cells. Combined with additional imaging of developing coccoliths using cryo-transmission electron microscopy and scanning electron microscopy, we report a quasi-continuous sequence of coccolith growth with the respective calculated mass for each state. Within this growth sequence, we identified that a significant proportion of the coccoliths were at the proto-coccolith ring stage, consistent with a rate-limiting step in their formation that we correlated to the shift in growth of the crystals from isotropic to anisotropic, potentially owing to constraints imposed by adjacent crystal units. This study provides unique insights into the morphological evolution of coccoliths during their development, and strengthens our understanding of this important biomineralization process.
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BibTeX
@article{triccas2026deciphering,
title = {{Deciphering coccolith formation: advanced microscopy insights from the biomineralization of Gephyrocapsa huxleyi.}},
author = {Alexander Triccas and Mariana Verezhak and Johannes Ihli and Manuel Guizar-Sicairos and Mirko Holler and Fraser Laidlaw and Martin R Singleton and Virginie Chamard and Rachel Wood and Tilman A Grünewald and Fabio Nudelman},
journal = {Journal of the Royal Society, Interface},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1098/rsif.2026.0369},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42838547},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Deciphering coccolith formation: advanced microscopy insights from the biomineralization of Gephyrocapsa huxleyi.
AU - Alexander Triccas
AU - Mariana Verezhak
AU - Johannes Ihli
AU - Manuel Guizar-Sicairos
AU - Mirko Holler
AU - Fraser Laidlaw
AU - Martin R Singleton
AU - Virginie Chamard
AU - Rachel Wood
AU - Tilman A Grünewald
AU - Fabio Nudelman
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/01
JO - Journal of the Royal Society, Interface
DO - 10.1098/rsif.2026.0369
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42838547
AB - Coccolithophores are unicellular marine phytoplankton that produce complex and intricately shaped mineralized scales called coccoliths. Coccoliths are produced in an intracellular vesicle where crystal nucleation occurs, from which several individual calcite units develop with anisotropic crystallographic facets, prompting studies into the cellular mechanisms that control crystal growth within the cell. Here, we characterize those morphological developments in three dimensions that occur during the formation of coccoliths by the species Gephyrocapsa huxleyi using cryo-ptychographic X-ray computed tomography. This technique is ideally suited to study coccolith mineral development, as intracellular structures can be imaged intact in their native state without needing to disrupt cells. Combined with additional imaging of developing coccoliths using cryo-transmission electron microscopy and scanning electron microscopy, we report a quasi-continuous sequence of coccolith growth with the respective calculated mass for each state. Within this growth sequence, we identified that a significant proportion of the coccoliths were at the proto-coccolith ring stage, consistent with a rate-limiting step in their formation that we correlated to the shift in growth of the crystals from isotropic to anisotropic, potentially owing to constraints imposed by adjacent crystal units. This study provides unique insights into the morphological evolution of coccoliths during their development, and strengthens our understanding of this important biomineralization process.
SN - 1742-5689
SN - 1742-5662
ER -