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Molecular Characterization of a Deep-Sea Methanotrophic Mussel Symbiont that Carries a RuBisCO Gene

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Abstract

In our previous investigation on the genes of 1,5-ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (RuBisCO; EC 4.1.1.39) in deep-sea chemoautotrophic and methanotrophic endosymbioses, the gene encoding the large subunit of RuBisCO form I (cbbL) had been detected in the gill of a mussel belonging to the genus Bathymodiolus from a western Pacific back-arc hydrothermal vent. This study further examined the symbiont source of the RuBisCO cbbL gene along with the genes of 16S ribosomal RNA (16S rDNA) and particulate methane monooxygenase (EC 1.14.13.25; pmoA) and probed for the presence of the ATP sulfurylase gene (EC 2.7.7.4; sopT). The 16S rDNA sequence analysis indicated that the mussel harbors a monospecific methanotrophic Gammaproteobacterium. This was confirmed by amplification and sequencing of the methanotrophic pmoA, while thiotrophic sopT was not amplified from the same symbiotic genome DNA. Fluorescence in situ hybridization demonstrated simultaneous occurrence of the symbiont-specific 16S rDNA, cbbL and pmoA, but not sopT, in the mussel gill. This is the first molecular and visual evidence for a methanotrophic bacterial endosymbiont that bears the RuBisCO cbbL gene relevant to autotrophic CO2 fixation.

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Acknowledgments

We deeply thank Prof. Dr. Y. Yoshimura, Department of Animal Science, Hiroshima University, for his help in the preparation of histological sections for in situ hybridization. We also thank the operations team of the ROV Dolphin 3K, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, for their help in the collection of mussel specimens. This work was supported by the Special Coordination Fund Archaean Park Project: International Research Project on Interaction between Sub-vent Biosphere and Geo-environments from the Japan Science and Technology Agency and Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (14340268) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Biosphere Science, Hiroshima University, 1-4-4 Kagamiyama, Higashi-hiroshima, 739-8528, Japan

    Hosam Easa Elsaied, Ryo Kaneko & Takeshi Naganuma

  2. Institute of Biological Resources and Functions, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba-Ibaraki, Japan

    Hosam Easa Elsaied

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  1. Hosam Easa Elsaied
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Correspondence to Takeshi Naganuma.

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Elsaied, H.E., Kaneko, R. & Naganuma, T. Molecular Characterization of a Deep-Sea Methanotrophic Mussel Symbiont that Carries a RuBisCO Gene. Mar Biotechnol 8, 511–520 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10126-005-6135-5

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