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Plant and Cell Physiology Advance Access published online on October 27, 2006
Plant and Cell Physiology, doi:10.1093/pcp/pcl026
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Regular paper

Identification of Chlorophyllide a Oxygenase in Prochlorococcus Genome by Comparative Genomic Approach

Soichirou Satoh 1 and Ayumi Tanaka 2 *

1 Division of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-0810, Japan
2 Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-0819, Japan

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Ayumi Tanaka, E-mail: Ayumi{at}pop.lowtem.hokudai.ac.jp


  Abstract

Chlorophyll b is a major photosynthetic pigment of peripheral antenna complexes in chlorophytes and prochlorophytes. Chlorophyll b is synthesized by chlorophyllide a oxygenase (CAO), an enzyme that has been identified from higher plants, moss, green algae and two groups of Prochlorophytes, Prochlorothrix and Prochloron. Based on these results, we previously proposed the hypothesis that all of the chlorophyll b synthesis genes have a common origin. However, the CAO gene is not found in whole genome sequences of Prochlorococcus although a gene which is distantly related to CAO was reported. If Prochlorococcus employs a different enzyme, a chlorophyll synthesis gene should have evolved several times on the different phylogenetic lineages of Prochlorococcus and other chlorophyll b containing organisms. To examine these hypotheses, we identified a Prochlorococcus chlorophyll b synthesis gene by using a combination of bioinformatics and molecular genetics techniques. We first identified Prochlorococcus specific genes by comparing the whole genome sequences of Prochlorococcus marinus MED4, MIT9313 and SS120 to Synechococcus sp. WH8102. Synechococcus is closely related to Prochlorococcus phylogenetically, but it does not contain a chlorophyll b synthesis gene. By examining the sequences of Prochlorococcus specific genes, we found a candidate for chlorophyll b synthesis gene and introduced it into Synechocystis sp. PCC6803. The transformant cells accumulated chlorophyll b, indicating that the gene product catalyzes chlorophyll b synthesis. In this study, we discuss the evolution of CAO based upon the molecular phylogenetic studies we performed.

Keywords: Blast; Chlorophyll; chlorophyllide a oxygenase; Comparative genomics; Prochlorococcus.
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