Comparative genomics of the marine bacterial genus Glaciecola reveals the high degree of genomic diversity and genomic characteristic for cold adaptation

• Published in: Environmental microbiology 2014-06, Vol.16 (6), p.1642-1653
• Main Authors: Qin, Qi‐Long, Xie, Bin‐Bin, Yu, Yong, Shu, Yan‐Li, Rong, Jin‐Cheng, Zhang, Yan‐Jiao, Zhao, Dian‐Li, Chen, Xiu‐Lan, Zhang, Xi‐Ying, Chen, Bo, Zhou, Bai‐Cheng, Zhang, Yu‐Zhong
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adaptation, Physiological - genetics; Alteromonadaceae - genetics; Animal and plant ecology; Animal, plant and microbial ecology; Bacteria; Bacteriology; Base Sequence; Biological and medical sciences; Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats; cold; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Gene Transfer, Horizontal; General aspects; Genes; genetic relationships; Genetic Variation; Genome, Bacterial; Genomes; Genomics; Glaciecola; horizontal gene transfer; marine environment; Microbial ecology; Microbiology; Miscellaneous; Molecular Sequence Data; Phylogeny; Sea water ecosystems; Sequence Analysis, DNA; Synecology
• ISSN: 1462-2912; 1462-2920
• DOI: 10.1111/1462-2920.12318

To what extent the genomes of different species belonging to one genus can be diverse and the relationship between genomic differentiation and environmental factor remain unclear for oceanic bacteria. With many new bacterial genera and species being isolated from marine environments, this question warrants attention. In this study, we sequenced all the type strains of the published species of Glaciecola, a recently defined cold‐adapted genus with species from diverse marine locations, to study the genomic diversity and cold‐adaptation strategy in this genus. The genome size diverged widely from 3.08 to 5.96 Mb, which can be explained by massive gene gain and loss events. Horizontal gene transfer and new gene emergence contributed substantially to the genome size expansion. The genus Glaciecola had an open pan‐genome. Comparative genomic research indicated that species of the genus Glaciecola had high diversity in genome size, gene content and genetic relatedness. This may be prevalent in marine bacterial genera considering the dynamic and complex environments of the ocean. Species of Glaciecola had some common genomic features related to cold adaptation, which enable them to thrive and play a role in biogeochemical cycle in the cold marine environments.