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

Yu Yang,1,2 Song Qin,1 Fangqing Zhao,1,2 Xiaoyuan Chi,1,2 and Xiaowen Zhang1,2

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

Academic Editor: Stephen Oliver

Copyright © 2007 Yu Yang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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.