Plant Physiology 137:460-474 (2005)
© 2005 American Society of Plant Biologists
GENOME ANALYSIS-CHLAMYDOMONAS
Comparative Genomics of Two Closely Related Unicellular Thermo-Acidophilic Red Algae, Galdieria sulphuraria and Cyanidioschyzon merolae, Reveals the Molecular Basis of the Metabolic Flexibility of Galdieria sulphuraria and Significant Differences in Carbohydrate Metabolism of Both Algae1
Guillaume Barbier2,
Christine Oesterhelt2,
Matthew D. Larson,
Robert G. Halgren,
Curtis Wilkerson,
R. Michael Garavito,
Christoph Benning and
Andreas P.M. Weber*
Department of Plant Biology (G.B., A.P.M.W.), Bioinformatics Core, Genomics Technology Support Facility (M.D.L., R.G.H., C.W.), and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (R.M.G., C.B.), Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824; and Institut für Biochemie und Biologie, Universität Potsdam, D–14476 Golm, Germany (C.O.)
Unicellular algae serve as models for the study and discovery of metabolic pathways, for the functional dissection of cell biological processes such as organellar division and cell motility, and for the identification of novel genes and gene functions. The recent completion of several algal genome sequences and expressed sequence tag collections and the establishment of nuclear and organellar transformation methods has opened the way for functional genomics approaches using algal model systems. The thermo-acidophilic unicellular red alga Galdieria sulphuraria represents a particularly interesting species for a genomics approach owing to its extraordinary metabolic versatility such as heterotrophic and mixotrophic growth on more than 50 different carbon sources and its adaptation to hot acidic environments. However, the ab initio prediction of genes required for unknown metabolic pathways from genome sequences is not trivial. A compelling strategy for gene identification is the comparison of similarly sized genomes of related organisms with different physiologies. Using this approach, candidate genes were identified that are critical to the metabolic versatility of Galdieria. Expressed sequence tags and high-throughput genomic sequence reads covering >70% of the G. sulphuraria genome were compared to the genome of the unicellular, obligate photoautotrophic red alga Cyanidioschyzon merolae. More than 30% of the Galdieria sequences did not relate to any of the Cyanidioschyzon genes. A closer inspection of these sequences revealed a large number of membrane transporters and enzymes of carbohydrate metabolism that are unique to Galdieria. Based on these data, it is proposed that genes involved in the uptake of reduced carbon compounds and enzymes involved in their metabolism are crucial to the metabolic flexibility of G. sulphuraria.
1 This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (award no. EF–0332882 to A.P.M.W., R.M.G., and C.B.) and by an Emmy-Noether Fellowship of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (to C.O.).
2 These authors contributed equally to this paper.
www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/doi/10.1104/pp.104.051169.
* Corresponding author; e-mail aweber{at}msu.edu; fax 517–432–5294.
Received August 3, 2004;
returned for revision September 22, 2004;
accepted October 29, 2004.
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