Fig. 1: Phosphorus starvation enhances the growth of Fe-limited cyanobacteria.

a The growth curve of Synechocystis under different iron and phosphorus availabilities. Values are mean ± SD of three independent biological replicates. Asterisks indicate a significant difference between −Fe+P and −Fe−P using the two-sided Student’s t-test. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, with exact P-values provided as source data. b–c Image of the culture and biomass of Synechocystis after 4 days of growth. The biomass shown in (c) was the pellets obtained from 100 mL of cells after centrifugation. The experiment was repeated with similar results three times. d Growth rates of Synechocystis grown under +Fe+P, −Fe+P, and −Fe−P conditions. Values are mean ± SD of three independent biological replicates. e Room temperature absorption spectra of Synechocystis grown under +Fe+P, −Fe+P, and −Fe−P conditions for 4 days. Data shown are from representative sample of three independent biological replicates. f Changes in Fv/Fm values of Synechocystis after 4 days of growth under +Fe+P, −Fe+P, and −Fe−P conditions. Values are mean ± SD of three independent biological replicates. g The violin plot showing the distribution of the cell diameter data points, while the embedded line and triangle in the boxplot mark the mean and median cell diameter, respectively. The upper and lower edges of the box indicate the first and third quartiles, and the whiskers extend to 1.5 × the interquartile range beyond the first and third quartiles. Data shown are measured from three independent biological replicates with the total number of at least 150 cells. Letters above bars indicate statistical significance (P < 0.05) calculated by one-way ANOVA across all treatments. For d and f line segments and corresponding P-values represent statistical significance calculated by two-sided Student’s t-test. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.