RESEARCH ARTICLE Unraveling the Physiological Roles of the Cyanobacterium Geitlerinema sp. BBD and Other Black Band Disease Community Members through Genomic Analysis of a Mixed Culture Paul A. Den Uyl1, Laurie L. Richardson4, Sunit Jain1, Gregory J. Dick1,2,3* a11111 1 Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109–1005, United States of America, 2 Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109–1048, United States of America, 3 Center for Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109–2218, United States of America, 4 Department of Biological Sciences, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199, United States of America *
[email protected] OPEN ACCESS Citation: Den Uyl PA, Richardson LL, Jain S, Dick GJ (2016) Unraveling the Physiological Roles of the Abstract Cyanobacterium Geitlerinema sp. BBD and Other Black Band Disease Community Members through Black band disease (BBD) is a cyanobacterial-dominated polymicrobial mat that propagates Genomic Analysis of a Mixed Culture. PLoS ONE 11 on and migrates across coral surfaces, necrotizing coral tissue. Culture-based laboratory (6): e0157953. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0157953 studies have investigated cyanobacteria and heterotrophic bacteria isolated from BBD, but Editor: Christina A. Kellogg, U.S. Geological Survey, the metabolic potential of various BBD microbial community members and interactions UNITED STATES between them remain poorly understood. Here we report genomic insights into the physio- Received: April 19, 2016 logical and metabolic potential of the BBD-associated cyanobacterium Geitlerinema sp. Accepted: June 7, 2016 BBD 1991 and six associated bacteria that were also present in the non-axenic culture.