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Unicellular cyanobacteria with a new mode of life: the lack of photosynthetic oxygen evolution allows nitrogen fixation to proceed

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Abstract

Some unicellular N2-fixing cyanobacteria have recently been found to lack a functional photosystem II of photosynthesis. Such organisms, provisionally termed UCYN-A, of the oceanic picoplanktion are major contributors to the global marine N-input by N2-fixation. Since their photosystem II is inactive, they can perform N2-fixation during the day. UCYN-A organisms cannot be cultivated as yet. Their genomic analysis indicates that they lack genes coding for enzymes of the Calvin cycle, the tricarboxylic acid cycle and for the biosynthesis of several amino acids. The carbon source in the ocean that allows them to thrive in such high abundance has not been identified. Their genomic analysis implies that they metabolize organic carbon by a new mode of life. These unicellular N2-fixing cyanobacteria of the oceanic picoplankton are evolutionarily related to spheroid bodies present in diatoms of the family Epithemiaceae, such as Rhopalodia gibba. More recently, spheroid bodies were ultimately proven to be related to cyanobacteria and to express nitrogenase. They have been reported to be completely inactive in all photosynthetic reactions despite the presence of thylakoids. Sequence data show that R. gibba and its spheroid bodies are an evolutionarily young symbiosis that might serve as a model system to unravel early events in the evolution of chloroplasts. The cell metabolism of UCYN-A and the spheroid bodies may be related to that of the acetate photoassimilating green alga Chlamydobotrys.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Kendra Turk for technical assistance. Research was supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the NSF Center for Microbial Oceanography Research and Education.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Botanical Institute, The University of Cologne, Zülpicher Str. 47b, 50923, Cologne, Germany

    Hermann Bothe

  2. Department of Ocean Sciences and Institute of Marine Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California, 95064, USA

    H. James Tripp & Jonathan P. Zehr

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  1. Hermann Bothe
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  2. H. James Tripp
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Correspondence to Hermann Bothe.

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Communicated by Erko Stackebrandt.

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Bothe, H., Tripp, H.J. & Zehr, J.P. Unicellular cyanobacteria with a new mode of life: the lack of photosynthetic oxygen evolution allows nitrogen fixation to proceed. Arch Microbiol 192, 783–790 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-010-0621-5

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