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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, July 2009, p. 4835-4852, Vol. 75, No. 14
0099-2240/09/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/AEM.02874-08
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
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Timothy J. Williams,2
Gary Xie,3,4
Hajnalka E. Kiss,3,4
Thomas S. Brettin,3,4
Diego Martinez,3,4
Christian A. Ross,1
Dirk Schüler,5
B. Lea Cox,6
Kenneth H. Nealson,6 and
Dennis A. Bazylinski1*
University of Nevada, Las Vegas, School of Life Sciences, Las Vegas, Nevada 89154-4004,1 School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia,2 Bioscience Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico,3 DOE Joint Genome Institute, Department of Energy, Los Alamos, New Mexico,4 Department of Biology I, Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, 80638 Munich, Germany,5 Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California, 3616 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, California 90089-03716
Received 17 December 2008/ Accepted 15 May 2009
The marine bacterium strain MC-1 is a member of the alpha subgroup of the proteobacteria that contains the magnetotactic cocci and was the first member of this group to be cultured axenically. The magnetotactic cocci are not closely related to any other known alphaproteobacteria and are only distantly related to other magnetotactic bacteria. The genome of MC-1 contains an extensive (102 kb) magnetosome island that includes numerous genes that are conserved among all known magnetotactic bacteria, as well as some genes that are unique. Interestingly, certain genes that encode proteins considered to be important in magnetosome assembly (mamJ and mamW) are absent from the genome of MC-1. Magnetotactic cocci exhibit polar magneto-aerotaxis, and the MC-1 genome contains a relatively large number of identified chemotaxis genes. Although MC-1 is capable of both autotrophic and heterotrophic growth, it does not appear to be metabolically versatile, with heterotrophic growth confined to the utilization of acetate. Central carbon metabolism is encoded by genes for the citric acid cycle (oxidative and reductive), glycolysis, and gluconeogenesis. The genome also reveals the presence or absence of specific genes involved in the nitrogen, sulfur, iron, and phosphate metabolism of MC-1, allowing us to infer the presence or absence of specific biochemical pathways in strain MC-1. The pathways inferred from the MC-1 genome provide important information regarding central metabolism in this strain that could provide insights useful for the isolation and cultivation of new magnetotactic bacterial strains, in particular strains of other magnetotactic cocci.
Published ahead of print on 22 May 2009.
Present address: INM, Leibniz Institute for New Materials, 66123 Saarbrücken, Germany.
Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://aem.asm.org/.
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