Efficient isolation and cultivation of endosymbiotic Chlorella from Paramecium bursaria on agar plates by co-culture with yeast cells

Abstract

Paramecium bursaria is a ciliate that harbors Chlorella-like unicellular green algae as endosymbionts. The relationship between the host P. bursaria and the endosymbiotic Chlorella is facultative; therefore, both partners can be cultured independently and re-combined to re-establish symbiosis, making this system suitable for studying algal endosymbiosis. However, despite many previous studies, cultivation of endosymbiotic Chlorella remains difficult, particularly on agar plates. Here we describe a simple agar plate method for efficiently isolating and culturing cells of the endosymbiotic alga Chlorella variabilis from an individual P. bursaria cell, by co-culturing them with yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The co-culture with the yeast significantly improved the colony-forming efficiency of the alga on agar. Growth assays suggest that the main role of the co-cultured yeast cells is not to provide nutrients for the algal cells, but to protect the algal cells from some environmental stresses on the agar surface. Using the algal cells grown on the plates and a set of specially designed primers, direct colony PCR can be performed for screening of multiple endosymbiont clones isolated from a single host ciliate. These methods may provide a useful tool for studying endosymbiotic Chlorella species within P. bursaria and various other protists.