Cooccurrence of ScDSP gene expression, cell death, and DNA fragmentation in a marine diatom, Skeletonema costatum

A novel death-specific gene, ScDSP, was obtained from a death stage subtraction cDNA library of the diatom Skeletonema costatum. The full length of ScDSP cDNA was 921 bp in length, containing a 699-bp open reading frame encoding 232 amino acids and two stretches of 66 and 156 bp in the 5' and 3' untranslated regions, respectively. Analysis of the peptide structure revealed that ScDSP contained a signal peptide domain, a transmembrane domain, and a pair of EF-hand motifs. When S. costatum grew exponentially at a rate of 1.3 day(-1), the ScDSP mRNA level was at 2 mu mol (.) mole 18S rRNA(-1). In contrast, when the culture entered the death phase with a growth rate decreasing to 0.5 day(-1), ScDSP mRNA increased dramatically to 668 mu mol (.) mole 18S rRNA(-1), and a high degree of DNA fragmentation was simultaneously observed. Under the influence of a light-dark cycle, ScDSP expression in both exponential and stationary phases clearly showed a diel rhythm, but the daily mean mRNA level was significantly higher in the stationary phase. Our results suggest that ScDSP may play a role in the molecular mechanism of self-destructive autolysis in phytoplankton under stress.