Fig. 1

Overview over the experimental workflow (a), and the genomic positions of deletion targets in M. gryphiswaldense (b). Yellow circle (b) shows genes or gene sets targeted for multiple deletions. Grey: magnetosome island (MAI); black arrows: parts of predicted prophage sets and phage-related integrase and excisionase genes; green arrows: insertion element genes identified as most active in this study; purple: irrelevant gene clusters. Pink circle (b) indicates predicted prophage sets (dark red) and mobile genetic elements (light blue). The enlarged area shows the genetic organization of the native MAI with all five known magnetosome biosynthesis operons (red), genes of known or unknown function irrelevant for magnetosome formation (black), mobile genetic elements (light blue). The grey bars indicate the extent of regions M04 (~ 65 kb) and M13 (~ 100 kb), which were shown to be deletable en bloc in our previous study [53]. The presence of key magnetosome biosynthesis genes within the compact expression cassette of the applied vector pMDJM3 is indicated by red bars while connecting lines designate eliminated gene content