Multidisciplinary integrated characterization of a native Chlorella-like microalgal strain isolated from a municipal landfill leachate

To date, more than one-hundred taxa of green unicellular coccoid organisms have been wrongly included under the genus Chlorella. This is mainly due to the incomplete characterization resulting from studies that have not adopted and integrated the description of cell morphology, metabolic characteristics and genomic features. In this work, a new native Chlorella-like microalgal strain named “SEC_LI_ChL_1”, is described through a multimethod study. This strain was isolated from a pond where municipal landfil leachate flwed before wastewater treatment. The molecular characterization and the phylogenetic reconstructions based on two different DNA marker regions (i.e. the concatenated SSU and ITS rRNA gene and the complete 18S rRNA gene) were combined with light and transmission electron microscope observations, in addition to the analysis of metabolic traits under four different growing conditions (i.e. autotrophy, heterotrophy, mixotrophy and reduced autotrophy). The two separate phylogenetic analyses highlighted that the strain falls within the Chlorella-Micractinium clade, but with two different placements. According to the morphological-ultrastructural and metabolic analyses, “SEC_LI_ChL_1” shares some features with different Chlorella-like microalgae. Interestingly, two peculiar traits rarely or never previously described in Chlorella-like microalgal strains were observed: the association of the cells with endocellular bacteria, and the presence of doublets (i.e. two-celled microalgae aggregates not due to cell division).