ArticlePLoS biology2018
"Pomacytosis"-Semi-extracellular phagocytosis of cyanobacteria by the smallest marine algae.
Article in PLoS biology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Quantifying the fitness contribution of phagocytosis.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Phagocytosis underpins the biotrophic lifestyle of intracellular parasites in the class Phytomyxea (Rhizaria).The New phytologist · 2023Article
- Cell sorting reveals few novel prokaryote and photosynthetic picoeukaryote associations in the oligotrophic ocean.Environmental microbiology · 2021Article
- Unexpected presence of the nitrogen-fixing symbiotic cyanobacterium UCYN-A in Monterey Bay, California.Journal of phycology · 2020Article
- Algal plankton turn to hunting to survive and recover from end-Cretaceous impact darkness.Science advances · 2020Article
- On the use of models in understanding the rise of complex life.Interface focus · 2020Review
- Accumulation of ambient phosphate into the periplasm of marine bacteria is proton motive force dependent.Nature communications · 2020Article
- Multidomain ribosomal protein trees and the planctobacterial origin of neomura (eukaryotes, archaebacteria).Protoplasma · 2020Review
- Bacterioplankton reveal years-long retention of Atlantic deep-ocean water by the Tropic Seamount.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Notable predominant morphology of the smallest most abundant protozoa of the open ocean revealed by electron microscopy.Journal of plankton researchArticle
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The smallest algae, less than 3 μm in diameter, are the most abundant eukaryotes of the World Ocean. Their feeding on planktonic bacteria of similar size is globally important but physically enigmatic. Tiny algal cells tightly packed with the voluminous chloroplasts, nucleus, and mitochondria appear to have insufficient organelle-free space for prey internalization. Here, we present the first direct observations of how the 1.3-μm algae, which are only 1.6 times bigger in diameter than their prey, hold individual Prochlorococcus cells in their open hemispheric cytostomes. We explain this semi-extracellular phagocytosis by the cell size limitation of the predatory alga, identified as the Braarudosphaera haptophyte with a nitrogen (N2)-fixing endosymbiont. Because the observed semi-extracellular phagocytosis differs from all other types of protistan phagocytosis, we propose to name it "pomacytosis" (from the Greek πώμα for "plug").
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