Although ubiquitous and abundant in soils, acidobacteria have mostly escaped isolation and remain poorly investigated. Only a few cultured representatives and just eight genomes of subdivisions 1, 3, and 4 are available to date. Here, we determined the complete genome sequence of strain HEG_-6_39, the first genome of Acidobacterium subdivision 6. Copyright © 2016 Huang et al.
Bacterial classification on the basis of a polyphasic approach was conducted on three poly(3 hydroxybutyrate-co-4-hydroxybutyrate) [P(3HB-co-4HB)] accumulating bacterial strains that were isolated from samples collected from Malaysian environments; Kulim Lake, Sg. Pinang river and Sg. Manik paddy field. The Gram-negative, rod-shaped, motile, non-sporulating and non-fermenting bacteria were shown to belong to the genus Cupriavidus of the Betaproteobacteria on the basis of their 16S rRNA gene sequence analyses. The sequence similarity value with their near phylogenetic neighbour, Cupriavidus pauculus LMG3413T, was 98.5%. However, the DNA-DNA hybridization values (8-58%) and ribotyping analysis both enabled these strains to be differentiated from related Cupriavidus species with validly published names. The RiboPrint patterns of the three strains also revealed that the strains were genetically related even though they displayed a clonal diversity. The major cellular fatty acids detected in these strains included C15:0 ISO 2OH/C16:1 ?7c, hexadecanoic (16:0) and cis-11-octadecenoic (C18:1 ?7c). Their G+C contents ranged from 68.0 to 68.6 mol%, and their major isoprenoid quinone was Ubiquinone Q-8. Of these three strains, only strain USMAHM13 (= DSM 25816 = KCTC 32390) was discovered to exhibit yellow pigmentation that is characteristic of the carotenoid family. Their assembled genomes also showed that the three strains were not identical in terms of their genome sizes that were 7.82, 7.95 and 8.70 Mb for strains USMAHM13, USMAA1020 and USMAA2-4, respectively, which are slightly larger than that of Cupriavidus necator H16 (7.42 Mb). The average nucleotide identity (ANI) results indicated that the strains were genetically related and the genome pairs belong to the same species. On the basis of the results obtained in this study, the three strains are considered to represent a novel species for which the name Cupriavidus malaysiensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain of the species is USMAA1020T (= DSM 19416T = KCTC 32390T).
More than a century ago, Theodor Escherich isolated the bacterium that was to become Escherichia coli, one of the most studied organisms. Not long after, the strain began an odyssey and landed in many laboratories across the world. As laboratory culture conditions could be responsible for major changes in bacterial strains, we conducted a genome analysis of isolates of this emblematic strain from different culture collections (England, France, the United States, Germany). Strikingly, many discrepancies between the isolates were observed, as revealed by multilocus sequence typing (MLST), the presence of virulence-associated genes, core genome MLST, and single nucleotide polymorphism/indel analyses. These differences are correlated with the phylogeographic history of the strain and were due to an unprecedented number of mutations in coding DNA repair functions such as mismatch repair (MutL) and oxidized guanine nucleotide pool cleaning (MutT), conferring a specific mutational spectrum and leading to a mutator phenotype. The mutator phenotype was probably acquired during subculturing and corresponded to second-order selection. Furthermore, all of the isolates exhibited hypersusceptibility to antibiotics due to mutations in efflux pump- and porin-encoding genes, as well as a specific mutation in the sigma factor-encoding generpoS. These defects reflect a self-preservation and nutritional competence tradeoff allowing survival under the starvation conditions imposed by storage. From a clinical point of view, dealing with such mutator strains can lead microbiologists to draw false conclusions about isolate relatedness and may impact therapeutic effectiveness. IMPORTANCE Mutator phenotypes have been described in laboratory-evolved bacteria, as well as in natural isolates. Several genes can be impacted, each of them being associated with a typical mutational spectrum. By studying one of the oldest strains available, the ancestral Escherich strain, we were able to identify its mutator status leading to tremendous genetic diversity among the isolates from various collections and allowing us to reconstruct the phylogeographic history of the strain. This mutator phenotype was probably acquired during the storage of the strain, promoting adaptation to a specific environment. Other mutations inrpoSand efflux pump- and porin-encoding genes highlight the acclimatization of the strain through self-preservation and nutritional competence regulation. This strain history can be viewed as unintentional experimental evolution in culture collections all over the word since 1885, mimicking the long-term experimental evolution ofE. coliof Lenski et al. (O. Tenaillon, J. E. Barrick, N. Ribeck, D. E. Deatherage, J. L. Blanchard, A. Dasgupta, G. C. Wu, S. Wielgoss, S. Cruveiller, C. Médigue, D. Schneider, and R. E. Lenski, Nature 536:165-170, 2016, https://doi.org/10.1038/nature18959) that shares numerous molecular features.
We present here the whole-genome sequence of Shewanella sp. WE21, an unusual omega-3 fatty acid-producing bacterium isolated from the gastrointestinal tract of the freshwater fish Sander vitreus (walleye). This genome contains a number of unique, large genomic islands with genes not present in other Shewanella bacteria. Copyright © 2018 Castillo et al.
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