AUTHOR=Humphrey Brittany , Mackenzie Morgan , Lobitz Mia , Schambach Jenna Y. , Lasley Greyson , Kolker Stephanie , Ricken Bryce , Bennett Haley , Williams Kelly P. , Smallwood Chuck R. , Cahill Jesse TITLE=Biotic countermeasures that rescue Nannochloropsis gaditana from a Bacillus safensis infection JOURNAL=Frontiers in Microbiology VOLUME=14 YEAR=2023 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2023.1271836 DOI=10.3389/fmicb.2023.1271836 ISSN=1664-302X ABSTRACT=
The natural assemblage of a symbiotic bacterial microbiome (bacteriome) with microalgae in marine ecosystems is now being investigated as a means to increase algal productivity for industry. When algae are grown in open pond settings, biological contamination causes an estimated 30% loss of the algal crop. Therefore, new crop protection strategies that do not disrupt the native algal bacteriome are needed to produce reliable, high-yield algal biomass. Bacteriophages offer an unexplored solution to treat bacterial pathogenicity in algal cultures because they can eliminate a single species without affecting the bacteriome. To address this, we identified a highly virulent pathogen of the microalga