Identification and characterization of a flagellin gene from the endosymbiont of the hydrothermal vent tubeworm Riftia pachyptila.

ABSTRACT: The bacterial endosymbionts of the hydrothermal vent tubeworm Riftia pachyptila play a key role in providing their host with fixed carbon. Results of prior research suggest that the symbionts are selected from an environmental bacterial population, although a free-living form has been neither cultured from nor identified in the hydrothermal vent environment. To begin to assess the free-living potential of the symbiont, we cloned and characterized a flagellin gene from a symbiont fosmid library. The symbiont fliC gene has a high degree of homology with other bacterial flagellin genes in the amino- and carboxy-terminal regions, while the central region was found to be nonconserved. A sequence that was homologous to that of a consensus sigma28 RNA polymerase recognition site lay upstream of t

SUBMITTER: Millikan DS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC91466 | biostudies-literature | 1999 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature