[2] Rhodophyta, the phylum of red algae, has a cell wall composed of sulfated galactans.

Agarans, a main component of the cell wall is composed of alternating 3-linked β-D-galactose and 4-linked α-L-galactose.

[3] The two most important transferred genes are Bp1689 (GH16 β-porphyranase) and Bp1670 (GH16 agarase), as the enzymes they make deal with sugars found in the molecule.

In total, 11 genes are believed to have been transferred: they do not occur in other Phocaeicola species (known as of 2010) and have sequence similarity of 48%-69% compared to orthologs in Z. galactanivorans.

[3] In 2012, it was reported that Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron VPI-5482 has a related set of genes in the same order, albeit specialized to a different task: degradation of α-mannan, a fungal sugar.