The effect of deficiency and excess of copper ions on the alga Ostreococcus tauri

Copper is an essential element for many organisms. Copper ions play an important role in respiration, iron ion transport and cell development. The mechanism of uptake and utilization of copper ions is best described in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This is a very demanding process, consisting of many regulators that maintain the concentration of copper ions below the toxic level. The toxicity of these ions is manifested by the formation of reactive oxygen species by reaction similar to the Fenton reaction. Algae, being photosynthetic organisms that contain both plastids and mitochondria, are a good model for studying the uptake and utilization of copper ions. As algae model organism has been chosen Ostreococcus tauri, which is the smallest living eukaryote. In this work, we are looking at the question of how cells of O. tauri deal with the deficiency and toxicity of copper ions. An immunochemical analysis revealed that there was no change in the expression of the enzyme cytochrome c oxidase, which is part of the respiratory chain and contains CuA domain that binds atoms of copper. Spectrophotometric assay showed that the lack of copper ions does not affect the formation of photosynthetic pigments, chlorophyll a and b. Proteomic analysis revealed proteins whose expression was affected by the toxicity of..