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Science 22 November 2002:
Vol. 298. no. 5598, pp. 1616 - 1620
DOI: 10.1126/science.1075558
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Reports

Whole-Genome Analysis of Photosynthetic Prokaryotes

Jason Raymond,1* Olga Zhaxybayeva,2* J. Peter Gogarten,2 Sveta Y. Gerdes,3 Robert E. Blankenship1dagger

The process of photosynthesis has had profound global-scale effects on Earth; however, its origin and evolution remain enigmatic. Here we report a whole-genome comparison of representatives from all five groups of photosynthetic prokaryotes and show that horizontal gene transfer has been pivotal in their evolution. Excluding a small number of orthologs that show congruent phylogenies, the genomes of these organisms represent mosaics of genes with very different evolutionary histories. We have also analyzed a subset of "photosynthesis-specific" genes that were elucidated through a differential genome comparison. Our results explain incoherencies in previous data-limited phylogenetic analyses of phototrophic bacteria and indicate that the core components of photosynthesis have been subject to lateral transfer.

1 Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Arizona State University (ASU), Tempe, AZ 85287-1604, USA.
2 Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269-3044, USA.
3 Integrated Genomics, 2201 West Campbell Park Drive, Chicago, IL 60612, USA.
*   These authors contributed equally to this paper.

dagger    To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: blankenship{at}asu.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)