title: Complete genome structure of the thermophilic cyanobacterium Thermosynechococcus elongatus BP-1.
abstract: The entire genome of a thermophilic unicellular cyanobacterium, Thermosynechococcus elongatus BP-1, was sequenced. The genome consisted of a circular chromosome 2,593,857 bp long, and no plasmid was detected. A total of 2475 potential protein-encoding genes, one set of rRNA genes, 42 tRNA genes representing 42 tRNA species and 4 genes for small structural RNAs were assigned to the chromosome by similarity search and computer prediction. The translated products of 56% of the potential protein-encoding genes showed sequence similarity to experimentally identified and predicted proteins of known function, and the products of 34% of these genes showed sequence similarity to the translated products of hypothetical genes. The remaining 10% lacked significant similarity to genes for predicted proteins in the public DNA databases. Sixty-three percent of the T. elongatus genes showed significant sequence similarity to those of both Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 and Anabaena sp. PCC 7120, while 22% of the genes were unique to this species, indicating a high degree of divergence of the gene information among cyanobacterial strains. The lack of genes for typical fatty acid desaturases and the presence of more genes for heat-shock proteins in comparison with other mesophilic cyanobacteria may be genomic features of thermophilic strains. A remarkable feature of the genome is the presence of 28 copies of group II introns, 8 of which contained a presumptive gene for maturase/reverse transcriptase. A trace of genome rearrangement mediated by the group II introns was also observed.
authors.affiliation: Kazusa DNA Research Institute, Kisarazu, Chiba, Japan.
authors.forename: Yasukazu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Nakamura
authors.forename: Takakazu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kaneko
authors.forename: Shusei
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sato
authors.forename: Masahiko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ikeuchi
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Katoh
authors.forename: Shigemi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sasamoto
authors.forename: Akiko
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Watanabe
authors.forename: Mayumi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Iriguchi
authors.forename: Kumiko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kawashima
authors.forename: Takaharu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kimura
authors.forename: Yoshie
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kishida
authors.forename: Chiaki
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kiyokawa
authors.forename: Mitsuyo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kohara
authors.forename: Midori
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Matsumoto
authors.forename: Ai
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Matsuno
authors.forename: Naomi
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Nakazaki
authors.forename: Sayaka
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Shimpo
authors.forename: Masako
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sugimoto
authors.forename: Chie
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Takeuchi
authors.forename: Manabu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yamada
authors.forename: Satoshi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tabata
mesh_terms: D000458:Cyanobacteria / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D016680:Genome, Bacterial; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010788:Photosynthesis / Q000235:genetics; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA