Scientists have discovered that extracellular vesicles from cyanobacteria are also present in the ocean.

Aside from serving as the base unit of the ocean's food chain, scientists at the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education in Hawai'I (C-MORE), found out another important task of these tiny cells. The researchers have discovered that the cyanobacteria are also responsible for creating vesicles, sphere-shaped packages which contain nutrients and carbon. These vesicles may serve as tiny food parcels for aquatic animals. Aside from that, it also contains DNA which provides marine organisms a way to transfer genetic material within members of the same species or thwart attacks from invading viruses.

NSF program director in the Office of International and Integrative Activities, Dragana Brzakovic said in a press release, "This world-class team integrates molecular ecology, genomics and ecological modeling with remote sensing technology to enhance our knowledge about the marine microbial community and its relationship to origins of life on earth."

To come up with their analysis, the researchers gathered seawater samples from New England, a nutrient-rich coastal water, and Sargasso Sea, whose waters are classified as nutrient-sparse. From these water samples, the researchers were able to isolate the vesicles, measuring around 100 nanometres in diameter.

Lab experiments reflected that the vesicles found were able to last for more than two weeks and they contain enough nutrients and carbon to help promote the growth of any species of non-photosynthetic bacteria. Researchers attributed the production of these extracellular vesicles to the two most common types of cyanobacteria, Synechococcus and Prochlorococcus.

"The finding that vesicles are so abundant in the oceans really expands the context in which we need to understand these structures," said co-author and MIT postdoc Steven Biller in the press release. "Vesicles are a previously unrecognized and unexplored component of the dissolved organic carbon in marine ecosystems, and they could prove to be an important vehicle for genetic and biogeochemical exchange in the oceans."

This study was published in the January 9 issue of Science.

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