MIC.RO
Laboratory of Marine Multi-partner Symbioses
LAB NEWS
Conference
BIG DAY for MIC.Rott Lab!
My (historically!) first three students, working on different aspects of ciliate symbioses, have presented their research at the international conference Protistology Open 2026 in the Czech Republic! I am a proud PI and so happy Catalina, Gina, and Marissabel got to tell people about their work and met other protistologists of the world!
Plus, they got to explore the beautiful Prague!
New paper published in Nature
During my PhD studies in the Cepicka Lab (Charles University), I maintained a number of cultures of various anaerobic protists. One of them had Muranothrix gubernata, a member of a new ciliate class we had just described, and was very precious to me. It only had the Muranotrichean.. or so we thought. Then one day, after years happily growing in the tube, it perished.
I searched, drop after drop, for a cell, or at least a cyst. What I found instead was a tiny little ball (or a sphere, as my American student taught me to call balls). A contamination? I kept searching for more, and found a tiny flagellate. What, a double contamination? But what is it? Not being the flagellate expert in the lab, I asked another member of the lab to check it and called my supervisor. By the time we came back, the flagellate stopped moving, and changed appearance. Rolling its single flagellum around the tiny cell, getting rounder and rounder, it looked nothing like when I left. As we were staring at it, the flagellum slowly disappeared within the cell. Now, it was a ball (ok, sphere). Aha! There was another one of these somewhere on the slide. As I was trying to find it again, in the general area on the slide, we suddenly notice a little sun-like cell, with funny looking tentacles, similar as some Suctorian ciliates have, but much smaller. A third contamination?? That can't be! And well, it wasn't.
Solarion arienae, this little multi-personality ball-flagellate-sun organism, was there all along, but with the ciliate growing there, it was barely surviving, in very low numbers. When the ciliate died, it finally was allowed to breathe - with its ancient mitochondria that retained secA gene, a remnant of an ancestral alphaproteobacterial protein secretion pathway, which has been lost almost entirely in extant mitochondria. Following a multitude of analyses, led by Marek Valt and performed by an amazing team, Solarion was assigned to a new phylum Caelestes and together with Provora, hemimastigophoreans, and Meteora, a new eukaryotic supergroup, Disparia, was formed. The discovery of S. arienae broadens our understanding of early eukaryotic evolution and facilitates the study of proto-mitochondrial metabolic remnants, shedding light on the complexity of ancestral eukaryotic life.
New paper published in Protist
A beautiful ciliate with very intriguing ectosymbionts – Spirorhynchus verrucosus – has been long forgotten by science. Now we know it is yet another genus of the obligately anaerobic Muranotrichea, isolated so far only in marine and brackish shallow coastal hypoxic environments.
Well, the sister of Spirorhynchus verrucosus has been livin' in the deep sea of Santa Barbara Basin since the 90's!
Read more about this wonderful collaborative work of Bill Bourland & Cepicka Lab, Roxanne Beinart, and Joan Bernhard enabling deep sea sampling in the new Protist paper at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.protis.2025.126129.
There is so much to say about this journey. If you want to hear the story behind, check out our first blogpost.
June 2025 - GRC Animal–Microbe Symbiosis Gordon Research Conference, Portland, Maine
On the week of June 15-20, 2025, I attended the Animal–Microbe Symbiosis Gordon Research Conference in Portland, Maine. This conference is especially important in my field and felt very relevant to my studies, because it highlights different models of symbiosis, but specifically those involving microbes.
Many of the talks were outside of my research focus, but I found them eye-opening. Topics like host–symbiont cross-talk, symbiont acquisition, and innovating genomic approaches gave me new ideas that I can apply to my project.
Beyond the academic side, I had a lot of fun on a conference cruise, where I even got to see seals. I also met many experienced graduate students, postdocs, and researchers, and learned more about what life in academia can look like. These conversations gave me a sense of direction and reassured me that I’m on the right path. I left the conference feeling motivated to work harder on my research — and with the realization that I actually know more about my work than I give myself credit for.
I am grateful to the Carl Storm Underrepresented Fellowship, without which I would not have been able to attend, and to the GRC organizers and board for putting together such a valuable meeting. Most of all, I’d like to thank my PI for encouraging me to attend and supporting me in this experience.
Catalina Aponte-Cartagena
June 2025 - Department of Marine Sciences UPRM - Student Maxwell/Hanrahan Foudation Grant
I'm very proud of Catalina and Gina, who have received funds for their fieldwork through the department's the Maxwell/Hanrahan Grants, which support field biologists around the world in accessing scientific equipment, gear or materials for their fieldwork. Through Small Grants in Field Biology, the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation supports undergraduate- and graduate-level Field Research Fellowships and Internships at an array of US-based research institutions to provide early scientists with meaningful, hands-on experiences that can make a difference in their careers. Congratulations!
September 2024 - Cayo Caracoles, La Parguera, Puerto Rico
On Monday, we isolated samples from mangrove sediments surrounding the beautiful Cayo Caracoles near the Department of Marine Sciences UPRM at Magueyes, La Parguera. Click above to see images from our first fieldwork with new lab members Catalina Aponte-Cartagena and Gina Fuller!
