Application for an Early-concept Grant for Exploratory Reasearch (EAGER) to develop a Pathway/Genome Database (PGDB) for the Southern Ocean Haptophyte Phaeocystis Antarctica.

The factors that enable P Antarctica to dominate its competitors are not clear but are likely related to its colonial lifestyle. The goal of the project is to map all the reactions in metabolic pathways that are key to defining the ecological niche of Phaeocystis antarctica by developing a Pathway/Genome Database (PGDB) using Pathway Tools software.

The investigators will assign proteins and enzymes to key pathways in P. Antarctica, continually improve and edit the database as the full Phaeocystis genome comes online, and host the database on the BioCyc webpage. The end product will be the first database for a eukaryotic phytoplankton genome where researchers can query extant metabolic pathways and place new proteins and enzymes of interest within metabolic networks.