Partial sequence of ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase and the phylogeny ofProchloronandProchlorococcus(Prochlorales)

✍ Scribed by Atsuhiro Shimada; Satoru Kanai; Tadashi Maruyama

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1995
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 661 KB
• Volume: 40
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-2844
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00160516

✦ Synopsis

The prochlorophytes, oxygenic photosynthetic prokaryotes having no phycobiliprotein but possessing chlorophylls a and b, have been proposed to have a common ancestry with green chloroplasts, yet this is still controversal. We report here that partial sequence comparisons of the large subunit of ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase, including sequence data from two prochlorophytes, Prochlorococcus and Prochloron, indicate that Prochlorococcus is more closely related to a photosynthetic bacterium, Chromatium vinosum ('/-purple bacteria), than to cyanobacteria, while Prochloron is closely related to the prochlorophyte Prochlorothrix and to cyanobacteria. The molecular phylogenetic tree indicates that a common ancestor of Prochlorococcus and ?-purple bacteria branched off from the land plant lineage earlier than Prochloron, Prochlorothrix, and cyanobacteria.