Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Albuquerque 2001

SS04 Environmental Microbial Genomics (Environmental and Disciplinary Connections)

Date: Wednesday, February 14, 2001, Time: 11:15:00 AM

Location: Brazos

Palenik, B, P, U.C.S.D. Scripps Inst. of Oceanography, La Jolla, USA, bpalenik@ucsd.edu

SIGNAL TRANSDUCTION IN MARINE CYANOBACTERIA

In bacteria the regulation of transport and other cellular processes in response to environmental signals is a complex multi-level process, but one theme that has emerged is the importance of two-component signal transduction systems. For example Streptococcus pneumoniae has at least thirteen sensor/regulator pairs. Synechocystis and Nostoc have more than twenty. Recent results from the genome sequences of marine cyanobacteria show that Prochlorococcus (MED4) has four histidine sensor kinases while Synechococcus (WH8102) has five. There appear to be four pairs of homologous kinases based on Clustal W alignment analyses, while Synechococcus has one histidine kinase that does not appear to be homologous to any protein in Prochlorococcus or Synechocystis . Based on current genome database releases, Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus have six and nine response regulators respectively that could directly affect transcription as they have DNA binding motifs. These marine cyanobacteria may have fewer two-component systems compared to other bacteria due to their overall smaller or possibly more streamlined genomes.

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Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Albuquerque 2001

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