De Tommasi Edoardo, Gielis Johan, Rogato Alessandra
Institute for Microelectronics and Microsystems, CNR, Via P. Castellino 111, 80131 Naples, Italy.
University of Antwerp, Department of Bioscience Engineering, Groenenborgerlaan 171, 2020 Antwerp, Belgium.
Mar Genomics. 2017 Oct;35:1-18. doi: 10.1016/j.margen.2017.07.001. Epub 2017 Jul 19.
Diatoms represent the major component of phytoplankton and are responsible for about 20-25% of global primary production. Hundreds of millions of years of evolution led to tens of thousands of species differing in dimensions and morphologies. In particular, diatom porous silica cell walls, the frustules, are characterized by an extraordinary, species-specific diversity. It is of great interest, among the marine biologists and geneticists community, to shed light on the origin and evolutionary advantage of this variability of dimensions, geometries and pore distributions. In the present article the main reported data related to frustule morphogenesis and functionalities with contributions from fundamental biology, genetics, mathematics, geometry and physics are reviewed.
硅藻是浮游植物的主要组成部分，约占全球初级生产力的20%-25%。数亿年的进化产生了成千上万种在尺寸和形态上各异的物种。特别是硅藻的多孔二氧化硅细胞壁，即硅藻壳，具有非凡的、物种特异性的多样性。在海洋生物学家和遗传学家群体中，揭示这种尺寸、几何形状和孔隙分布变异性的起源和进化优势极具吸引力。在本文中，我们回顾了与硅藻壳形态发生和功能相关的主要报道数据，这些数据来自基础生物学、遗传学、数学、几何学和物理学领域的研究贡献。
