Polyploid Achromatium sp. expresses protein variants based on environmental cues
- 1Technische Universität Berlin
Abstract
Achromatium spp. are giant bacteria harboring hundreds of non-clonal chromosomes per cell. The allelic divergence they exhibit could be a mechanism to enable fine-tuned responses to environmental changes, enabling this organism to broaden its ecological range. However, while ubiquitous in freshwater and marine environments, Achromatium has not been obtained in culture, leaving the role and functioning of its genomic and proteomic diversity poorly understood. Here, we incubated freshly collected freshwater Achromatium under three temperature conditions to conduct comparative mass spectrometry-based proteomics experiments. These were interpreted against an Achromatium-specific protein atlas developed from curated published and new assemblies from marine and freshwater environments. This de novo assembled atlas allowed a twenty-fold increase in the number of identified proteins compared to mass spectrometry data searches against the UniProt database. Predicted proteins from the Achromatium atlas were grouped into orthologs, 5% of which showed temperature-associated detection of distinct protein variants within the group. This provides the first indication that Achromatium uses distinct protein variants under different environmental conditions, enabling it to swiftly respond to environmental changes through differential expression from its cache of chromosomes.
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BibTeX
@misc{heidig2026polyploid,
title = {{Polyploid Achromatium sp. expresses protein variants based on environmental cues}},
author = {S.-L. Heidig and S. Lama and J. B. Rijal and P. Remy and J.-M. Volland and O. Gros and W. F. Vranken and C. Carapito and D. Ionescu},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.07.749883},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.07.749883v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Polyploid Achromatium sp. expresses protein variants based on environmental cues
AU - S.-L. Heidig
AU - S. Lama
AU - J. B. Rijal
AU - P. Remy
AU - J.-M. Volland
AU - O. Gros
AU - W. F. Vranken
AU - C. Carapito
AU - D. Ionescu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/07
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.09.07.749883
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.07.749883v1
AB - Achromatium spp. are giant bacteria harboring hundreds of non-clonal chromosomes per cell. The allelic divergence they exhibit could be a mechanism to enable fine-tuned responses to environmental changes, enabling this organism to broaden its ecological range. However, while ubiquitous in freshwater and marine environments, Achromatium has not been obtained in culture, leaving the role and functioning of its genomic and proteomic diversity poorly understood. Here, we incubated freshly collected freshwater Achromatium under three temperature conditions to conduct comparative mass spectrometry-based proteomics experiments. These were interpreted against an Achromatium-specific protein atlas developed from curated published and new assemblies from marine and freshwater environments. This de novo assembled atlas allowed a twenty-fold increase in the number of identified proteins compared to mass spectrometry data searches against the UniProt database. Predicted proteins from the Achromatium atlas were grouped into orthologs, 5% of which showed temperature-associated detection of distinct protein variants within the group. This provides the first indication that Achromatium uses distinct protein variants under different environmental conditions, enabling it to swiftly respond to environmental changes through differential expression from its cache of chromosomes.
ER -