The genome of Cyanothece 51142, a unicellular diazotrophic cyanobacterium important in the marine nitrogen cycle.

ABSTRACT: Unicellular cyanobacteria have recently been recognized for their contributions to nitrogen fixation in marine environments, a function previously thought to be filled mainly by filamentous cyanobacteria such as Trichodesmium. To begin a systems level analysis of the physiology of the unicellular N(2)-fixing microbes, we have sequenced to completion the genome of Cyanothece sp. ATCC 51142, the first such organism. Cyanothece 51142 performs oxygenic photosynthesis and nitrogen fixation, separating these two incompatible processes temporally within the same cell, while concomitantly accumulating metabolic products in inclusion bodies that are later mobilized as part of a robust diurnal cycle. The 5,460,377-bp Cyanothece 51142 genome has a unique arrangement of one large circular chromosome,

SUBMITTER: Welsh EA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2567498 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature