Cyanothece sp. PCC 8801
   
   
 
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 8801 is a unicellular diazotrophic cyanobacterium and was isolated from rice fields in southern Taiwan during springtime. Cyanothece sp. PCC 8801 cells are ~3-4 ?m in size, relatively small compared to other Cyanothece species. The cells contain in, addition to chlorophyll and phycobilins, phycoerythrin, a pigment that allows the absorption of light from parts of the spectrum not utilized by many other of photosynthetic organisms.