The genomic basis for the evolution of a novel form of cellular reproduction in the bacterium Epulopiscium

BMC Genomics

Research Article

Garret Suen¹  Esther R Angert²  David A Miller²  Kendall D Clements³ 

[1] Department of Bacteriology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 53706, Madison, WI, USA;Department of Microbiology, Cornell University, 14853, Ithaca, NY, USA;School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland, 1142, Auckland, New Zealand;

关键词: Developmental process;    Endospore;    Sporulation;    Spore;    Endospore-forming bacteria;    Binary fission;    Intracellular offspring;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2164-13-265

 received in 2011-12-03, accepted in 2012-06-21,  发布年份 2012

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundEpulopiscium sp. type B, a large intestinal bacterial symbiont of the surgeonfish Naso tonganus, does not reproduce by binary fission. Instead, it forms multiple intracellular offspring using a process with morphological features similar to the survival strategy of endospore formation in other Firmicutes. We hypothesize that intracellular offspring formation in Epulopiscium evolved from endospore formation and these two developmental programs share molecular mechanisms that are responsible for the observed morphological similarities.ResultsTo test this, we sequenced the genome of Epulopiscium sp. type B to draft quality. Comparative analysis with the complete genome of its close, endospore-forming relative, Cellulosilyticum lentocellum, identified homologs of well-known sporulation genes characterized in Bacillus subtilis. Of the 147 highly conserved B. subtilis sporulation genes used in this analysis, we found 57 homologs in the Epulopiscium genome and 87 homologs in the C. lentocellum genome.ConclusionsGenes coding for components of the central regulatory network which govern the expression of forespore and mother-cell-specific sporulation genes and the machinery used for engulfment appear best conserved. Low conservation of genes expressed late in endospore formation, particularly those that confer resistance properties and encode germinant receptors, suggest that Epulopiscium has lost the ability to form a mature spore. Our findings provide a framework for understanding the evolution of a novel form of cellular reproduction.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Miller et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2012. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.