Abstract
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 (γ-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 γ-purple bacteria branched off from the land plant lineage earlier than Prochloron, Prochlorothrix, and cyanobacteria.
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Shimada, A., Kanai, S. & Maruyama, T. Partial sequence of ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase and the phylogeny of Prochloron and Prochlorococcus (Prochlorales). J Mol Evol 40, 671–677 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00160516
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00160516