NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J., May 6 (UPI) -- The genes of marine microbes are giving clues on cancer and climate change alike, biologists say.

Debashish Bhattacharya of Rutgers University and Ramunas Stepanauskas and Hwan Su Yoon of the Bigelow Laboratory of Ocean Sciences in Maine report in the journal Science they have sequenced the genomes of individual picobilophytes, sea creatures discovered in 2007. Less than 10 micrometers across, they are among the smallest marine animals known.


"If we can peer inside the genome of a single cell and reconstruct its history, we can do that for many cells and figure out their interactions with other cells in the environment," Bhattacharya said.

"Our results demonstrate how single cell genomics opens a window into the natural drama that constantly takes place in each drop of seawater -- a drama featuring predation, viral infections and the divergent fate of close relatives," Stepanauskas said.

Bhattacharya and Rutgers marine scientist Oscar Schofield are using the same methods to study why some antarctic algae are surviving warming water and others are not.

Bigelow's Single Cell Genomics Center has analyzed more than 150,000 microbial cells.