Gene Transfers Enhance Photosynthesis

hundreds of microscopic, green spotted cyanobacteria colonies, growing in circles close together but hardly touching

Biological Strategy

Marine viruses

AskNature Team

Capture, Absorb, or Filter Chemical Entities

Living systems often require chemical elements and chemical compounds, including complex sugars, proteins, and odor-making compounds, to perform critical activities. These compounds exist in various states–solid, liquid, and gas–and are ubiquitous in soil, water, and air. This requires that living systems not only have ways to capture, absorb, or filter them, but also ways to differentiate among them, selecting those that are valuable or harmful. For example, mangrove trees live with their roots in salty water and sediments. Various mangrove species have different strategies for removing salt from the water they take in so that their tissues can use the fresh water.

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Regulate Cellular Processes

Cells are the basic building blocks of all living systems, so cellular processes dictate how physiological processes occur within those systems. Cells (whether entire unicellular organisms or parts of multicellular living systems) grow, metabolize nutrients (that is, chemically transform them), produce proteins and enzymes, replicate, and move. Cells as part of multicellular systems rarely act alone, instead having ways to signal to start and complete simple to quite complex interactions. How skin heals is a good example of the role of cellular processes. Blood cells called platelets release clotting factors to stop the bleeding; white blood cells rid the area of foreign materials and release molecules to coordinate healing; cells called fibroblasts start rebuilding using proteins called collagen; new blood vessels form; and skin cells called keratinocytes create the new surface.

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Marine viruses (called cyanophages) that infect cyanobacteria enhance photosynthesis in their hosts by displacing host photosynthesis genes with viral-encoded homologues.

“Cyanophages are double-stranded DNA viruses belonging to three morphologically defined families: Podoviridae, Myoviridae, and Siphoviridae [3–5,9,10]. Among the cyanophages, podoviruses and siphoviruses tend to be very host-specific, whereas myoviruses generally have a broader host range, even across genera [5], and thus are potential vectors for horizontal gene transfer via transduction. The movement of genes between organisms is an important mechanism in evolution. As agents of gene transfer, phages play a role in host evolution by supplying the host with new genetic material [11–15] and by displacing ‘host’ genes with viral-encoded homologues [16–18]…Because maximal cyanophage production is dependent on [31,33], and the host PsbA turns over rapidly [34] and declines during infection [31], expression of these phage-encoded genes likely enhances photosynthesis during infection, thus increasing cyanophage fitness.” (Sullivan et al. 2006:1344-1345)

Last Updated March 23, 2018

References

“Cyanophages are double-stranded DNA viruses belonging to three morphologically defined families: Podoviridae, Myoviridae, and Siphoviridae [3–5,9,10]. Among the cyanophages, podoviruses and siphoviruses tend to be very host-specific, whereas myoviruses generally have a broader host range, even across genera [5], and thus are potential vectors for horizontal gene transfer via transduction. The movement of genes between organisms is an important mechanism in evolution. As agents of gene transfer, phages play a role in host evolution by supplying the host with new genetic material [11–15] and by displacing ‘host’ genes with viral-encoded homologues [16–18]…Because maximal cyanophage production is dependent on photosynthesis [31,33], and the host PsbA protein turns over rapidly [34] and declines during infection [31], expression of these phage-encoded genes likely enhances photosynthesis during infection, thus increasing cyanophage fitness.” (Sullivan et al. 2006:1344-1345)

Journal article