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Journal of Bacteriology, July 2008, p. 4687-4696, Vol. 190, No. 13
0021-9193/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.00299-08
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

The Genome of Heliobacterium modesticaldum, a Phototrophic Representative of the Firmicutes Containing the Simplest Photosynthetic Apparatus{triangledown} ,{dagger}

W. Matthew Sattley,1 Michael T. Madigan,2 Wesley D. Swingley,3 Patricia C. Cheung,1 Kate M. Clocksin,2 Amber L. Conrad,4 Liza C. Dejesa,4 Barbara M. Honchak,1 Deborah O. Jung,2 Lauren E. Karbach,1 Ahmet Kurdoglu,4 Surobhi Lahiri,1 Stephen D. Mastrian,4 Lawrence E. Page,1 Heather L. Taylor,4 Zi T. Wang,1 Jason Raymond,5 Min Chen,6 Robert E. Blankenship,7 and Jeffrey W. Touchman4,8*

Department of Biology, Washington University, Campus Box 1137, St. Louis, Missouri 63130,1 Department of Microbiology, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois 62901,2 Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, N19W8, Sapporo 060-0819, Japan,3 Translational Genomics Research Institute, Scottsdale, Arizona 85259,4 School of Natural Sciences, University of California, Merced, California 95344,5 School of Biological Sciences (A08), The University of Sydney, NSW 2006 Sydney, Australia,6 Departments of Biology and Chemistry, Washington University, Campus Box 1137, St. Louis, Missouri 63130,7 School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University,Tempe, Arizona 852878

Received 27 February 2008/ Accepted 17 April 2008

Despite the fact that heliobacteria are the only phototrophic representatives of the bacterial phylum Firmicutes, genomic analyses of these organisms have yet to be reported. Here we describe the complete sequence and analysis of the genome of Heliobacterium modesticaldum, a thermophilic species belonging to this unique group of phototrophs. The genome is a single 3.1-Mb circular chromosome containing 3,138 open reading frames. As suspected from physiological studies of heliobacteria that have failed to show photoautotrophic growth, genes encoding enzymes for known autotrophic pathways in other phototrophic organisms, including ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase (Calvin cycle), citrate lyase (reverse citric acid cycle), and malyl coenzyme A lyase (3-hydroxypropionate pathway), are not present in the H. modesticaldum genome. Thus, heliobacteria appear to be the only known anaerobic anoxygenic phototrophs that are not capable of autotrophy. Although for some cellular activities, such as nitrogen fixation, there is a full complement of genes in H. modesticaldum, other processes, including carbon metabolism and endosporulation, are more genetically streamlined than they are in most other low-G+C gram-positive bacteria. Moreover, several genes encoding photosynthetic functions in phototrophic purple bacteria are not present in the heliobacteria. In contrast to the nutritional flexibility of many anoxygenic phototrophs, the complete genome sequence of H. modesticaldum reveals an organism with a notable degree of metabolic specialization and genomic reduction.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287. Phone: (480) 965-5444. E-mail: j.touchman{at}asu.edu

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 25 April 2008.

{dagger} Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://jb.asm.org/.

Journal of Bacteriology, July 2008, p. 4687-4696, Vol. 190, No. 13
0021-9193/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.00299-08
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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