Bioinform Int | Volume 1, Issue 1 | Short Communication | Open Access

Chitin Synthases in Diatoms

Alberto Amato^1* and Maria Immacolata Ferrante²

¹Department of Integrative Marine Ecology, Université Grenoble Alpes, France
²Department of Integrative Marine Ecology, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn Villa Comunale 80121 Naples, Italy

^*Correspondance to: Alberto Amato 

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Abstract

Chitin is the most abundant biopolymer in the oceans and is present in both eukaryotic and prokaryotic organisms. In the ocean diatoms are the most species-rich phytoplankton and some species have proved synthesise chitin. BLAST in chitin synthase genes into the Marine Microbial Eukaryotic Transcriptome Sequencing Project database, which contains 188 diatom transcriptomes with more than 60 different species, we found 46 sequences from 15 different species. This finding reveals that, albeit not all the diatom species identified are proved to synthesise chitin, they do possess the molecular toolkit to synthesise chitin.

Citation:

Amato A, Ferrante MI. Chitin Synthases in Diatoms. Bioinform Int. 2018; 1(1): 1001.