Comparative and Functional Genomics
Volume 2007 (2007), Article ID 25751, 10 pages
doi:10.1155/2007/25751
Research Article
Comparison of Envelope-Related Genes in Unicellular and Filamentous Cyanobacteria
1Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao 266071, China
2Graduate University, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
Received 2 August 2006; Revised 17 February 2007; Accepted 3 June 2007
Recommended by Stephen Oliver
Abstract
To elucidate the evolution of cyanobacterial envelopes and the relation between gene content and environmental adaptation, cell envelope structures and components of unicellular and filamentous cyanobacteria were analyzed in comparative genomics. Hundreds of envelope biogenesis genes were divided into 5 major groups and annotated according to their conserved domains and phylogenetic profiles. Compared to unicellular species, the gene numbers of filamentous cyanobacteria expanded due to genome enlargement effect, but only few gene families amplified disproportionately, such as those encoding waaG and glycosyl transferase 2. Comparison of envelope genes among various species suggested that the significant variance of certain cyanobacterial envelope biogenesis genes should be the response to their environmental adaptation, which might be also related to the emergence of filamentous shapes with some new functions.