A complete genome of Bathymodiolus thermophilus thioautotrophic symbiont
reveals a unique hydrogenase operon among hydrothermal vent mussel
symbionts
Abstract
The mytilid mussel Bathymodiolus thermophilus lives in the deep-sea
hydrothermal vent regions due to its symbiotic relationship with
chemosynthetic Gammaproteobacteria species which reside inside
specialized gill cells. The symbionts in the gill bacteriocytes oxidize
the reduced sulfur amply available in the vent environment. Here we
sequenced and assembled the complete genome of a gill symbiont sampled
from an individual mussel from the East Pacific Rise (EPR9N), using
PacBio sequencing technology. The final symbiont assembly consists of a
single contig size of 2.83 Mb, with a GC content of 38.6% and encodes
for 2,133 protein-coding genes. CRISPR diversity analysis confirmed this
genome originated from a single symbiont strain. Comparative analysis
revealed 2,554 core gene clusters were shared with other B. thermophilus
thiotrophic gill symbiont genomes, whereas 125 were unique to this EPR9N
strain. In addition, we found that EPR9N strain has a unique hydrogenase
operon among Bathymodiolus mussels consisting of additional H2-sensing
hydrogenase subunits and a histidine kinase gene. Also, we found
methylated regions sparsely distributed throughout the EPR9N genome,
mainly in the transposases regions and densely present in the rRNA gene
regions. Variation in genome size, gene content and genome
re-arrangements across individual hosts suggest multiple symbiont
strains can associate with B. thermophilus. This complete mussel
symbiont genome will be invaluable for further comparative genomic
analyses studying structural genome evolution, symbiont population
diversity, and symbiont ecology in deep-sea chemosynthetic environments.