Cyanothece sp. PCC 7424
   
   
 
cyanothece image

Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic prokaryotes with important roles in diverse aqueous environments. Many cyanobacteria can also fix nitrogen, a process biochemically incompatible with oxygenic photosynthesis. We are interested in the strategies employed by unicellular nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria to accommodate these processes, which the analysis of gene structure and regulation can help elucidate.

Cyanothece sp. PCC 7424 is a unicellular cyanobacterium isolated from rice fields in Senegal. Cyanothece 7424 cells are oblong, 7-8 ?m in length. The genome shows that these cells have the ability to store the products of both photosynthesis (glycogen) and nitrogen fixation (cyanophycin) as intracellular inclusion bodies. Unlike some other Cyanothece strains, Cyanothece 7424 appears to be an obligate autotroph.