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Genomic Islands and the Ecology and Evolution of Prochlorococcus
Maureen L. Coleman,1Matthew B. Sullivan,1Adam C. Martiny,1Claudia Steglich,1*Kerrie Barry,2Edward F. DeLong,1Sallie W. Chisholm1
Prochlorococcus ecotypes are a useful system for exploring theorigin and function of diversity among closely related microbes.The genetic variability between phenotypically distinct strainsthat differ by less that 1% in 16S ribosomal RNA sequences occursmostly in genomic islands. Island genes appear to have beenacquired in part by phage-mediated lateral gene transfer, andsome are differentially expressed under light and nutrient stress.Furthermore, genome fragments directly recovered from oceanecosystems indicate that these islands are variable among cooccurringProchlorococcus cells. Genomic islands in this free-living photoautotrophshare features with pathogenicity islands of parasitic bacteria,suggesting a general mechanism for niche differentiation inmicrobial species.
1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 15 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. 2 U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, Production Genomics Facility, Walnut Creek, CA 94598, USA.
* Present address: University Freiburg, Department of BiologyII/Experimental Bioinformatics, Schänzlestrasse 1, D-79104Freiburg, Germany.
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: chisholm{at}mit.edu
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