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J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 283, Issue 14, 9002-9011, April 4, 2008

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Identification of a Novel Vinyl Reductase Gene Essential for the Biosynthesis of Monovinyl Chlorophyll in Synechocystis sp. PCC6803^*

From the Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-0819, Japan

The vast majority of oxygenic photosynthetic organisms use monovinyl chlorophyll for their photosynthetic reactions. For the biosynthesis of this type of chlorophyll, the reduction of the 8-vinyl group that is located on the B-ring of the macrocycle is essential. Previously, we identified the gene encoding 8-vinyl reductase responsible for this reaction in higher plants and termed it DVR. Among the sequenced genomes of cyanobacteria, only several Synechococcus species contain DVR homologues. Therefore, it has been hypothesized that many other cyanobacteria producing monovinyl chlorophyll should contain a vinyl reductase that is unrelated to the higher plant DVR. To identify the cyanobacterial gene that is responsible for monovinyl chlorophyll synthesis, we developed a bioinformatics tool, correlation coefficient calculation tool, which calculates the correlation coefficient between the distributions of a certain phenotype and genes among a group of organisms. The program indicated that the distribution of a gene encoding a putative dehydrogenase protein is best correlated with the distribution of the DVR-less cyanobacteria. We subsequently knocked out the corresponding gene (Slr1923) in Synechocystis sp. PCC6803 and characterized the mutant. The knock-out mutant lost its ability to synthesize monovinyl chlorophyll and accumulated 3,8-divinyl chlorophyll instead. We concluded that Slr1923 encodes the vinyl reductase or a subunit essential for monovinyl chlorophyll synthesis. The function and evolution of 8-vinyl reductase genes are discussed.

Received for publication, October 9, 2007 , and in revised form, January 28, 2008.

^* This work was supported by Grant-in-aid for Creative Scientific Research 17GS0314 (to A. T.) and Grant-in-aid for Scientific Research 68700307 (to R. T.) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan. The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

The on-line version of this article (available at http://www.jbc.org) contains supplemental Figs. 1–4.

¹ Both authors contributed equally to this work.

² To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel./Fax: 81-11-706-5494; E-mail: ito98{at}lowtem.hokudai.ac.jp.

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