Genetic manipulation of carotenoid biosynthesis in the green sulfur bacterium Chlorobium tepidum.

The green sulfur bacterium Chlorobium tepidum is a strict anaerobe and an obligate photoautotroph. On the basis of sequence similarity with known enzymes or sequence motifs, nine open reading frames encoding putative enzymes of carotenoid biosynthesis were identified in the genome sequence of C. tepidum, and all nine genes were inactivated.