Our research on phytoplankton is fairly diverse in nature but currently focuses on dinoflagellates, a phylum closely related to malaria parasite, apicomplexans, and ciliates. Dinoflagellates are important primary producers. Many of them are heterotrophic or mixotrophic. Symbiodinium (zooxanthellae) is essential to growth of reef-building corals. Dinoflagellates are major contributors of red tides (or harmful algal blooms), and some of them produce toxins. We are interested in how these organisms came to be what they are and do what they do, from a genomic perspective. Their genome is enormous, and their gene expression pattern and regulation are unusual compared to other eukaryotes. We study genome makeup, evolution, transcriptome, mRNA editing, and molecular markers (for phylogeny, population dynamics, and in situ cell division rate).
Lin, S., Zhang, H. and Gray, M. W. 2008. RNA editing in dinoflagellates and its implications for the evolutionary history of the editing machinery. In: H. Smith (ed.), RNA and DNA editing: Molecular Mechanisms and Their Integration into Biological Systems. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. p280-309.
Zhang, H., Bhattacharya, D. and Lin, S. 2007. A three-gene dinoflagellate phylogeny suggests monophyly of Prorocentrales and a basal position for Amphidinium and Heterocapsa J. Mol. Evol. 65: 463-474.
Zhang, H., Hou, Y., Miranda, L., Campbell, D. A., Sturm, N. R., Gaasterland, T. and Lin, S. 2007. Spliced leader RNA trans-splicing in dinoflagellates. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 104: 4618-4623.
Lin, S., Zhang, H., Hou, Y., Miranda, L. and Bhattacharya, D. 2006. Development of a dinoflagellate-oriented PCR primer set leads to the detection of picoplanktonic dinoflagellates from Long Island Sound. Appl. Environ. Micribiol. 72: 5626-5630.
Lin, S., Zhang, H. and Dubois, A. 2006. Low abundance distribution and of Pfiesteria piscicida in Pacific and Western Atlantic as detected by mtDNA-18S rDNA Real-Time PCR. J. Plankton Res. 28: 667-681.
Lin, S., Zhang, H. and Jiao, N. 2006. Potential utility of mitochondrial cytochrome b and its mRNA editing in resolving closely related dinoflagellates: a case study of Prorocentrum (Dinophyceae). J. Phycol. 42: 646-654.
Lin, S. 2006. The Smallest dinoflagellate genome is yet to be found: A comment on LaJeunesse et al. “Symbiodinium (Pyrrhophyta) genome sizes (DNA content) are smallest among dinoflagellates” J. Phycol. 42: 746-748.
