, 1999). They are widespread throughout the photic regions of the world’s oceans between 40°S and 50°N, with cell densities of up to 105 cells mL−1 in the central oligotrophic gyres (Partensky et al., 1999). They are principally distinguished

into two taxonomic GSK1120212 in vivo clades due to physiological niche adaptation to light intensity: high light- and low light-adapted ecotypes (Moore et al., 1998; West & Scanlan, 1999; Rocap et al., 2003). A great deal of interest has arisen around Prochlorococcus due to its small size and specifically its near-minimal genome. Indeed, the chromosomes of most Prochlorococcus strains demonstrate significant genomic reduction, revealing a central conserved core set of essential genes and a variable shell, which is hypothesized to reflect each individual strain’s evolutionary adaptation to a specific environmental niche (Kettler et al., 2007; Shi & Falkowski, 2008). Closer inspection of Prochlorococcus genomes reveals that Selleckchem FK228 the majority of these strain-specific genes (74% in the case of Prochlorococcus strain MED4) are located in highly variable ‘genomic islands’, suggesting a mosaic structure that continually undergoes genomic rearrangement (Coleman et al., 2006). A suggested source of pressure for these organisms to reduce genome as well as cell size is thought to be reduced nutrient

availability (Raven, 1998), which is a characteristic of subtropical oceans,

particularly phosphate (P). Indeed, P concentrations are hypothesized to have affected domain shifts from a eukaryotic to a prokaryotic life in these oligotrophic regions (Karl et al., 1995, 2001). Also, recent studies have found that phytoplanktonic species within nutrient-poor oceanic biomes substitute phospholipids with sulpholipids in order to conserve Farnesyltransferase ambient phosphorous for more essential metabolic use in the face of competition from heterotrophic bacteria (Van Mooy et al., 2006, 2009). A recent study of MED4 showed that a unique suite of genes was upregulated under P stress (Martiny et al., 2006). Most of these genes are orthologues of Escherichia coli genes located in and around the phoB operon, but another set are located within a variable genomic island, ‘Island 5’, and unique to MED4. The function of these genes is as yet uncharacterized; however, some putative annotations are available at GenBank (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/). It is clear that the availability and ambient concentration of inorganic P within oligotrophic regions is a crucial factor determining the success of MED4 within those environments. Therefore, this study seeks to ascertain the global quantitative proteomic response of MED4 to longer term P starvation, and thereby providing further insight into how this organism responds to P stress.