Emma Langan from the Earlham Institute in the UK spoke at London Calling 2019 on “Ship-Seq: nanopore sequencing of polar microbes onboard research vessels.” This was Langan’s Ph.D. project. Phytoplankton are photosynthetic organisms that live in water. They are responsible for carbon cycling and biogeochemical cycling. Langan is interested in diatoms, which are mainly found in the polar oceans. The diatoms are responsible for primary production and are understudied. Langan noted that there were two polar phytoplankton genomes. Thus, Langan’s goal was to use Nanopore MinION sequencing for real-time in situ sequencing of polar phytoplankton on research vessels. Some phytoplankton species cannot be cultured in the lab, and sometimes DNA is degraded even when stored! Langan went on an Antarctic research cruise. They took about 100 liters per station. They filtered the water in about ten hours. Langan did phenol: chloroform extractions. They used NanoOK for real-time analysis. They obtained 5 ugs of DNA per sample with their extractions, and Langan found phytoplankton and a small number of diatoms. Langan wants to obtain high molecular weight DNA and improve the protocols. They are planning another cruise with improved methods and reagents to aim for metagenomic assemblies. This session was fascinating as I know very little about phytoplankton.
