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BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES / EVOLUTION
Parallel genomic evolution and metabolic interdependence in an ancient symbiosis

John P. McCutcheon^, and Nancy A. Moran^,

Center for Insect Science and Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721-0088

Edited by E. Peter Greenberg, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, and approved October 19, 2007 (received for review September 18, 2007)

Obligate symbioses with nutrient-provisioning bacteria have originated often during animal evolution and have been key to the ecological diversification of many invertebrate groups. To date, genome sequences of insect nutritional symbionts have been restricted to a related cluster within Gammaproteobacteria and have revealed distinctive features, including extreme reduction, rapid evolution, and biased nucleotide composition. Using recently developed sequencing technologies, we show that Sulcia muelleri, a member of the Bacteroidetes, underwent similar genomic changes during coevolution with its sap-feeding insect host (sharpshooters) and the coresident symbiont Baumannia cicadellinicola (Gammaproteobacteria). At 245 kilobases, Sulcia's genome is approximately one tenth of the smallest known Bacteroidetes genome and among the smallest for any cellular organism. Analysis of the coding capacities of Sulcia and Baumannia reveals striking complementarity in metabolic capabilities.

Bacteroidetes | insects | pyrosequencing | Sharpshooters | genome reduction

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

Data deposition: The sequence of Sulcia muelleri has been deposited in the GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ database (accession no. CP000770).

This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0708855104/DC1.

To whom correspondence should be addressed at: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Biosciences West, Room 310, 1041 East Lowell Street, Tucson, AZ 85721-0088. E-mail: nmoran{at}email.arizona.edu

© 2007 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA

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PNAS 2007 104: 19161-19162. [Full Text]