Synechocystis sp.
•Synechocystis sp. Is Unicellular
•It is a Free-living cyanobacteria and is found in freshwater.
•Within this habitat, when Synechocystis sp blooms it can be a sighn of eutrophication. With this rapid response it means that Synechocystis sp can be used as a good indicator of changes within the environment e.g pollution.
•Synechocystis sp. uses a circadian clock to tell when it is light and dark and uses this ability to regulate gene expression.
•Via this circadian clock it is able to use phototrophic and heterotrophic methods of growth during either light or dark times of the day to grow and survive.
•Synechocystis sp. Was the first cyanobacteria to have its genome fully sequenced.
•It is probably one of the more simple cyanobacteria that could be used in research and represents freshwater cyanobacteria the best.
•Synechocystis has a reasonably small genome of 3.6Mbp, which contains 3172 protein coding regions.
•In the genome of the model cyanobacteria Synechocystis there are 620 well-studied genes and of these genes, there are a total of 1712 known mutant strains of these genes. Due to this, having a model species with many mutants aside from the normal wild type genes within the genome allows the researchers to identify protein function through looking at these mutant phenotypes and gives a base in order to compare other cyanobacterial species to this one organism to determine its classification.