Silica associated proteomes of three diatoms reveal conservation of sequence motifs, proteins highly conserved among diatoms, and proteins targeted to specific silica structures

Proteins associated with diatom silica are likely involved in the biogenesis of the complex, species-specific morphologies of the biomineral, but only very few such proteins have been identified. In this project we extracted and identified proteins from three related, but morphologically distinct, species of centric diatoms: Thalassiosira pseudonana, Thalassiosira oceanica and Cyclotella cryptica.