Recombination, cryptic clades and neutral molecular divergence of the microcystin synthetase (mcy) genes of toxic cyanobacterium Microcystis aeruginosa.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The water-bloom-forming cyanobacterium Microcystis aeruginosa is a known producer of various kinds of toxic and bioactive chemicals. Of these, hepatotoxic cyclic heptapeptides microcystins have been studied most intensively due to increasing concerns for human health risks and environmental damage. More than 70 variants of microcystins are known, and a single microcystin synthetase (mcy) gene cluster consisting of 10 genes (mcyA to mcyJ) has been identified to be responsible for the production of all known variants of microcystins. Our previous multilocus sequence typing (MLST) analysis of the seven housekeeping genes indicated that microcystin-producing strains of M. aeruginosa are classified into two phylogenetic groups.

Results

To investigate whether the mcy ge

SUBMITTER: Tanabe Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2693435 | biostudies-literature | 2009 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature