''Synechococcus elongatus'' is a
unicellular cyanobacterium that has a rapid
autotrophic growth comparable to
yeast. Its ability to grow rapidly using sunlight has implications for biotechnological applications, especially when incorporating
genetic modification.
Occurrence
In the last decade, several
strains of ''Synechococcus elongatus'' have been produced in laboratory environments, which ultimately led to the production of ''Synechococcus elongatus'' UTEX 2973. ''S. elongatus'' UTEX 2973 is a
mutant hybrid
Hybrid may refer to:
Science
* Hybrid (biology), an offspring resulting from cross-breeding
** Hybrid grape, grape varieties produced by cross-breeding two ''Vitis'' species
** Hybridity, the property of a hybrid plant which is a union of two dif ...
from UTEX 625.
In 1955,
William A. Kratz and
Jack Myers described a fast-growing cyanobacterial strain, ''
Anacystis nidulans'' which was deposited in the
University of Texas algae culture collection as ''
Synechococcus leopoliensis'' UTEX 625
However, that strain had lost its rapid growth property and was also unable to grow at high temperatures, unlike the original strain. In 2015,
Jingjie Yu and colleagues, were able to isolate the mutant strain from a mixed culture of ''
Synechococcus'' UTEX 625. The mutant strain was deposited to the UTEX algae culture collection, and given a new number, UTEX 2979.
Structure
''Synechococcus elongatus'' is
rod-shaped
A bacillus (), also called a bacilliform bacterium or often just a rod (when the context makes the sense clear), is a rod-shaped bacterium or archaeon. Bacilli are found in many different taxonomic groups of bacteria. However, the name ''Bacillu ...
with its cells typically greater than 2 µm in length. It typically contains 2–3
thylakoid membrane layers forming evenly spaced concentric rings and its
carboxysomes and
polyphosphate bodies are located in the central
cytoplasmic region (Image 1).
Genetics
The
genome sequence of ''Synechococcus'' UTEX 2973 was similar to the cyanobacterium ''Synechococcus'' PCC 7942. Even though it was isolated from ''S. elongatus'' 625, it is most closely related to ''S. elongatus'' PCC 7942 with 99.8% similarity. ''S. elongatus'' UTEX 2973 contains a
SNP to the gene encoding
ATP synthase F1 subunit α, comparable to the corresponding gene in ''Synechococcus'' PCC 7942. This specific SNP causes an amino acid substitution at the 252nd position of the protein.
Metabolism
''Synechococcus elongatus'' UTEX 2973 is
photoautotrophic and has one of the shortest
doubling time The doubling time is the time it takes for a population to double in size/value. It is applied to population growth, inflation, resource extraction, consumption of goods, compound interest, the volume of malignant tumours, and many other things th ...
s reported for cyanobacteria at 1.5 hours in a
BG11 medium at 42 °C under continuous 1,500 μmoles photons·m−2·s−1 white light with 5% CO
2. While it is typically maintained on BG11 media, it can also be cryopreserved using 1% (v/v) dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) as a cryoprotectant.
Significance
Ungerer and colleagues, 2018, used
CRISPR/Cpf1, to perform a mutational analysis of ''S. elongatus'' UTEX 2973 by identifying the three genes with SNPs associated with rapid growth, ''atpA'', ''ppnK'', and ''rpaA''. They replaced the
wild-type alleles in ''Synechococcus'' 7942 with the rapid growth associated alleles from ''S. elongatus'' UTEX 2973. This resulted in ''Synechococcus'' 7942 reducing its doubling time from 6.8 to 2.3 hours
References
{{taxonbar, from=Q18845307
Synechococcales