The Marine MicroEukaryote Transcriptome Sequencing Project (MMETSP)

Marine microbial eukaryotes are found in all major eukaryotic branches of the evolutionary tree. They perform a diverse range of functions in marine ecosystems-including photosynthesis, predation and parasitism. Despite the great abundance of microeukaryotes in the ocean, their importance as absorbers of carbon dioxide and their critical contribution to marine food webs (among many ecological roles), the gene content of these microorganisms is only beginning to be explored because their genomes can be structurally complex and many gigabases in size. This program is intended to increase the research community's baseline of scientific knowledge by creating catalogues of genes that specify how these organisms thrive in diverse marine habitats and how they influence marine ecosystems, biogeochemical cycles and the composition of the atmosphere. The National Center for Genome Resources (NCGR) and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation's (GBMF) Marine Microbiology Initiative (MMI) are engaged in a new research collaboration with the international marine microbial eukaryote research community to sequence the transcriptomes of approximately 700 samples that are expected to represent hundreds of diverse species and strains. Transcriptomes will be generated de novo using the Illumina HiSeq 2000 platform. This project aims to significantly enhance the research community's ability to: 1. Explore the physiology of diverse marine microbial eukaryotes; 2. Interpret metagenomic and metatranscriptomic data generated from marine ecosystems; and 3. Illuminate the evolutionary relationships among marine microbial eukaryotic clades and within the overall eukaryotic tree of life.