Autoactivation of Translation Causes the Bloom of Prorocentrum donghaiense in Harmful Algal Blooms

Abstract

Harmful algal blooms (HABs) are symptomatic of ecosystem imbalance, leading to major worldwide marine natural disasters, and seriously threaten the human health. Some HAB algae's exceptional genome size prohibited the genomic investigations on molecular mechanisms, for example, Prorocentrum. This study performed translatome sequencing (RNC-seq) for Prorocentrum donghaiense to assemble the translatome reference sequences on appropriate cost to enable the global molecular study at translatome and proteome levels. By analyzing the translatome and proteome of P. donghaiense in phosphor-rich, phosphor-deficient, and phosphor-restored media, we found massive up-regulation of energy and material production pathways in phosphor-rich conditions that enables autoactivation of translation, which is the key to its exponential growth in HABs. To break down the autoactivation, we demonstrated that mild translation delay using very low concentrations of cycloheximide efficiently controls the blooming without harming other aquatic organisms and humans. Our result provides a novel hint for controlling HABs and demonstrated the RNC-seq as an economic strategy on investigating functions of organisms with large and unknown genomes.