Unsuspected diversity among marine aerobic anoxygenic phototrophs

• DOI: 10.1038/415630a
• Publication Date: 2002-07-26T08:30:40Z
• Authors: Oded Béjà; Marcelino T. Suzuki; John F. Heidelberg; William C. Nelson; Christina M. Preston; Tohru Hamada; Jonathan A. Eisen; Claire M. Fraser; Edward F. DeLong
• Keywords: Anoxygenic photosynthesis; Bacterioplankton; Alphaproteobacteria

Aerobic, anoxygenic, phototrophic bacteria containing bacteriochlorophyll a (Bchla) require oxygen for both growth and Bchla synthesis1,2,3,4,5,6. Recent reports suggest that these are widely distributed in marine plankton, they may account up to 5% of surface ocean photosynthetic electron transport7 11% the total microbial community8. Known planktonic anoxygenic phototrophs belong only few restricted groups within Proteobacteria α-subclass. Here we report genomic analyses gene content operon organization naturally occurring bacteria. These clusters included some most closely resembled those from β-subclass, which have never before been observed environments. Furthermore, genes were broadly actively expressed neritic bacterioplankton assemblages, indicating newly identified photosynthetically competent. Our data demonstrate bacterial assemblages not simply composed one uniform, widespread class phototrophs, as previously proposed8; rather, contain multiple, distantly related, active groups, including unrelated known cultivated types.