Host-associated prokaryotes can undergo extreme genome reduction, but the most reduced genomes belong to mutualistic endosymbionts whose hosts compensate for lost functions, eroding the symbiont's identity as an autonomous cell. Whether comparable reduction can occur while preserving the informational autonomy of a cel...
Ryo Harada, Yuki Nishimura, Mami Nomura et al.· Current Biology· 0 citations
This study explored the function of the unknome of the SAR11 clade, the most abundant bacterial lineage in the ocean, with a particular focus on genes that provide insight into its ecology, and identified candidate viral defense systems within the unknome.
The SAR11 Genome Atlas is presented, an interactive ortholog group (OG)-centered web resource that integrates 542 SAR11 genomes, including all 132 cultured strain genomes, with functional annotations, synteny, phylogenetic distribution, metatranscriptomic expression, and predicted protein structure information.
