Lipidomic and transcriptomic analysis reveals the self-regulation mechanism of Schizochytrium sp. in response to temperature stresses

Temperature is an important factor that can not only affect cell growth, but also changes the fatty acid profile in microorganisms. This study systematically studied the response mechanism of Schizochytrium sp. to temperature stress by transcriptomic and lipidomic study. High or low temperature inhibited cell growth and affected lipid biosynthesis. Interestingly, low temperature induced more number of saturated fatty acid while high temperature enlarged the cell size. Further lipidomics data showed phospholipids were more sensitive to temperature change. The level of phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) at 15 °C was 1.8 times higher than that of 34 °C, while phosphatidylinositol (PI) and phosphatidyl glycerol (PG) content were much lower than that of 34 °C. Furthermore, transcriptome analysis revealed that the up-regulation of desaturase at low temperature and the up-regulated heat shock proteins at 34 °C. This study provided us an insight on the self-regulation mechanism to temperature and laid foundation for the further temperature regulation and mechanism exploration.