Metabolic stasis in an ancient symbiosis: genome-scale metabolic networks from two Blattabacterium cuenoti strains, primary endosymbionts of cockroaches
Abstract Background Cockroaches are terrestrial insects that strikingly eliminate waste nitrogen as ammonia instead of uric acid. Blattabacterium cuenoti (Mercier 1906) strains Bge and Pam are the obligate primary endosymbionts of the cockroaches Blattella germanica and Periplaneta americana, respectively. The genomes of both bacterial endosymbionts have recently been sequenced, making possible a genome-scale constraint-based reconstruction of their metabolic networks. The mathematical expression of a metabolic network and the subsequent quantitative studies of phenotypic features by Flux Balance Analysis (FBA) represent an efficient functional approach to these uncultivable bacteria. Resul…
Blueprint for a minimal photoautotrophic cell: conserved and variable genes in Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942.
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