Molecular genetics of polyunsaturated fatty acid biosynthesis in marine bacteria ...

• Main Author: Smith, MC
• Format: Thesis
• Language: unknown
• Published: University Of Tasmania 2023
• Subjects: Antarctic; Antarc*; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.25959/23245748.v1; https://figshare.utas.edu.au/articles/thesis/Molecular_genetics_of_polyunsaturated_fatty_acid_biosynthesis_in_marine_bacteria/23245748/1

This study investigated the genetics of polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUF A) production from two bacterial species isolated from Antarctic sea ice (Shewanella gelidimarina and Colwellia psychrerythraea) with a view to evaluate the use of PUFA genes as molecular markers in culture independent studies. Initial attempts to utilise transposon mutagenesis to determine the loci of PUFA production within these organisms was unsuccessful. However, utilising PCR mediated amplification, a number of regions from S. gelidimarina with high homology to pfaA, pfaC and pfaD from the published eicosapentaenoic (EPA) gene cluster of Shewanella sp. strain SCRC 2738 were resolved. Similarly, this study identified an open reading frame (ORF) encoding a 4' phosphopantetheinyl transferase (pfaE) with high predicted protein homology but low nucleotide similarity to its homolog from strain SCRC 2738, indicating a divergence in codon usage between the two ORFs. Two amplified regions from S. gelidimarina with homology to internal ...