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Phototrophic Gemmatimonadetes: A New “Purple” Branch on the Bacterial Tree of Life

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Modern Topics in the Phototrophic Prokaryotes

Abstract

Photosynthesis first emerged in prokaryotes over three billion years ago and represents one of the most fundamental biological processes on Earth. So far, species capable of performing (bacterio)chlorophyll-based phototrophy have been reported in seven bacterial phyla, i.e., Cyanobacteria, Proteobacteria, Chlorobi, Chloroflexi, Firmicutes, Acidobacteria, and Gemmatimonadetes. Here we review the discovery, physiology, genomic characteristics, environmental distribution, and possible evolutionary origin of the bacterium Gemmatimonas phototrophica strain AP64, so far the only phototrophic member of the phylum Gemmatimonadetes. This organism was isolated from a freshwater lake in the Gobi Desert, North China in 2011. It contains fully functional type-2 photosynthetic reaction centers, but they seem to only serve as an auxiliary energy source. Its photosynthesis genes are located in a 42.3 kb long photosynthesis gene cluster which appear to originate from an ancient horizontal gene transfer from a purple phototrophic bacterium. A survey of biomarker genes of phototrophic Gemmatimonadetes bacteria (PGB) in public environmental genomics databases suggests that PGB are widely distributed in diverse environments, including air, river waters/sediment, estuarine waters, lake waters, biofilms, plant surfaces, intertidal sediments, soils, springs, and wastewater treatment plants, but none from marine waters or sediment. PGB make up roughly 0.4–11.9 % of whole phototrophic microbial communities in these habitats. The discovery of PGB presents a strong evidence that genes for anoxygenic phototrophy can be transferred between distant bacterial phyla, providing new insights into the evolution of bacterial photosynthesis.

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Abbreviations

BChl:

Bacteriochlorophyll

PGB:

Phototrophic Gemmatimonadetes bacteria

PGC:

Photosynthesis gene cluster

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Acknowledgement

The main content of this chapter is a compilation of three research papers we published before (Zeng et al. 2014, 2015, 2016). We thank Fuying Feng, Hana Medová, Jason Dean, Vadim Selyanin, Martin Lukes, David Kaftan, and Jan Baumbach and his group members in University of Southern Denmark for their help in different periods along our journey of researching this novel phototrophic bacterial group. Y.Z.’s postdoctoral research in University of Southern Denmark was supported by the ERC advanced grant “OXYGEN.” M.K. would like to acknowledge the support from Czech projects GAČR P501/12/G055 and Algatech Plus LO1416.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nordic Center for Earth Evolution (NordCEE) & Institute of Biology, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, 5230, Denmark

    Yonghui Zeng

  2. Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS), Aarhus University, DK-8000, Aarhus C, Denmark

    Yonghui Zeng

  3. Center Algatech, Institute of Microbiology CAS, Třeboň, 37981, Czech Republic

    Michal Koblížek

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  1. Yonghui Zeng
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  2. Michal Koblížek
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Correspondence to Yonghui Zeng or Michal Koblížek .

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  1. Department of Biology Life Sciences Research Center, United States Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA

    Patrick C. Hallenbeck

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Zeng, Y., Koblížek, M. (2017). Phototrophic Gemmatimonadetes: A New “Purple” Branch on the Bacterial Tree of Life. In: Hallenbeck, P. (eds) Modern Topics in the Phototrophic Prokaryotes. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46261-5_5

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