Conservation of proteobacterial magnetosome genes and structures in an uncultivated member of the deep-branching Nitrospira phylum.

ABSTRACT: Magnetotactic bacteria (MTB) are a phylogenetically diverse group which uses intracellular membrane-enclosed magnetite crystals called magnetosomes for navigation in their aquatic habitats. Although synthesis of these prokaryotic organelles is of broad interdisciplinary interest, its genetic analysis has been restricted to a few closely related members of the Proteobacteria, in which essential functions required for magnetosome formation are encoded within a large genomic magnetosome island. However, because of the lack of cultivated representatives from other phyla, it is unknown whether the evolutionary origin of magnetotaxis is monophyletic, and it has been questioned whether homologous mechanisms and structures are present in unrelated MTB. Here, we present the analysis of the uncultiv

SUBMITTER: Jogler C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3024689 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature