Scientists at the USDA and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory know that better breeding of maize to feed a growing population will depend on an accurate reference assembly. They tackled the previously intractable crop with a combination of PacBio Sequencing and BioNano Genomics® genome maps, leading to the first-ever high-quality reference assembly.
The UK’s National Collection of Type Cultures (NCTC) is a unique collection of more than 5,000 expertly preserved and authenticated bacterial cultures, many of historical significance. Founded in 1920, NCTC is the longest established collection of its type anywhere in the world, with a history of its own that has reflected — and contributed to — the evolution of microbiology for more than 100 years.
Chlorella vulgaris is a fast-growing fresh-water microalga cultivated at the industrial scale for applications ranging from food to biofuel production. To advance our understanding of its biology and to establish genetics tools for biotechnological manipulation, we sequenced the nuclear and organelle genomes of Chlorella vulgaris 211/11P by combining next generation sequencing and optical mapping of isolated DNA molecules. This hybrid approach allowed to assemble the nuclear genome in 14 pseudo-molecules with an N50 of 2.8 Mb and 98.9% of scaffolded genome. The integration of RNA-seq data obtained at two different irradiances of growth (high light-HL versus low light -LL) enabled…
Two Marinobacter sp. NP-4 and NP-6 were isolated from a deep oceanic basaltic crust at North Pond, located at the western flank of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. These two strains are capable of using multiple carbon sources such as acetate, succinate, glucose and sucrose while take oxygen as a primary electron acceptor. The strain NP-4 is also able to grow anaerobically under 20?MPa, with nitrate as the electron acceptor, thus represents a piezotolerant. To explore the metabolic potentials of Marinobacter sp. NP-4 and NP-6, the complete genome of NP-4 and close-to-complete genome of NP-6 were sequenced. The genome of NP-4 contains…
Breeding efforts in the American cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon Ait.), a North American perennial fruit crop of great importance, have been hampered by the limited genetic and phenotypic variability observed among cultivars and experimental materials. Most of the cultivars commercially used by cranberry growers today were derived from a few wild accessions bred in the 1950s. In different crops, wild germplasm has been used as an important genetic resource to incorporate novel traits and increase the phenotypic diversity of breeding materials. Vaccinium microcarpum (Turcz. ex Rupr.) Schmalh. and V. oxycoccos L., two closely related species, may be cross-compatible with the American…
Supernumerary B chromosomes (Bs) are extra karyotype units in addition to A chromosomes, and are found in some fungi and thousands of animals and plant species. Bs are uniquely characterized due to their non-Mendelian inheritance, and represent one of the best examples of genomic conflict. Over the last decades, their genetic composition, function and evolution have remained an unresolved query, although a few successful attempts have been made to address these phenomena. A classical concept based on cytogenetics and genetics is that Bs are selfish and abundant with DNA repeats and transposons, and in most cases, they do not carry…
New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamases (NDMs) are an uncommon but emerging cause of carbapenem resistance in the United States. Genomic factors promoting their domestic spread remain poorly characterized. A prospective genomic surveillance program among Boston-area hospitals identified multiple new occurrences of NDM-carrying strains of Escherichia coli and Enterobacter cloacae complex in inpatient and outpatient settings, representing the first occurrences of NDM-mediated resistance since initiating genomic surveillance in 2011. Cases included domestic patients with no international exposures. PacBio sequencing of isolates identified strain characteristics, resistance genes, and the complement of mobile vectors mediating spread. Analyses revealed a common 3,114-bp region containing the blaNDM…
The Gram-negative bacterium Kerstersia gyiorum, a potential etiological agent of clinical infections, was isolated from several human patients presenting clinical symptoms. Its significance as a possible pathogen has been previously overlooked as no disease has thus far been definitively associated with this bacterium. To better understand how the organism contributes to the infectious disease, we determined the complete genomic sequence of K. gyiorum SWMUKG01, the first clinical isolate from southwest China.The genomic data obtained displayed a single circular chromosome of 3, 945, 801 base pairs in length, which contains 3, 441 protein-coding genes, 55 tRNA genes and 9 rRNA genes.…
Members of the genus Nocardia are widespread in diverse environments; a wide range of Nocardia species are known to cause nocardiosis in several animals, including cat, dog, fish, and humans. Of the pathogenic Nocardia species, N. seriolae is known to cause disease in cultured fish, resulting in major economic loss. We isolated two N. seriolae strains, CK-14008 and EM15050, from diseased fish and sequenced their genomes using the PacBio sequencing platform. To identify their genomic features, we compared their genomes with those of other Nocardia species. Phylogenetic analysis showed that N. seriolae shares a common ancestor with a putative human…
Contaminant sequences that appear in published genomes can cause numerous problems for downstream analyses, particularly for evolutionary studies and metagenomics projects. Our large-scale scan of complete and draft bacterial and archaeal genomes in the NCBI RefSeq database reveals that 2250 genomes are contaminated by human sequence. The contaminant sequences derive primarily from high-copy human repeat regions, which themselves are not adequately represented in the current human reference genome, GRCh38. The absence of the sequences from the human assembly offers a likely explanation for their presence in bacterial assemblies. In some cases, the contaminating contigs have been erroneously annotated as containing…
Colwellia sp. Arc7-D, a psychrophilic H2O2-resisitant bacterium, was isolated from Arctic Ocean sediment. Here we describe the complete genome of Colwellia sp. Arc7-D. The genome has one circular chromosome of 4,305,442?bp (37.67?mol%?G?+?C content), consisting of 3526 coding genes, 77 tRNA genes, as well as five rRNA operons as 16S–23S-5S rRNA and one rRNA operon as 16S-23S-5S-5S. According to KEGG analysis, strain Arc7-D encodes 23 genes related with antioxidant activity including superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase, glutathione reductase and catalase. However, many additional genes affiliated with anti-oxidative stress were also identified, such as aconitase, thioredoxin and ascorbic acid.
Unlike the normal anadromous lifestyle, Chinese native Dolly Varden char (Salvelinus malma) is locked in land and lives in fresh water lifetime. To explore the effect of freshwater adaption on its immune system, we constructed a pooled cDNA library of hepatopancreas and spleen of Chinese freshwater Dolly Varden char (S. malma). A total of 27,829 unigenes were generated from 31,233 high-quality transcripts and 17,670 complete open reading frames (ORF) were identified. Totally 25,809 unigenes were successfully annotated and it classified more native than adaptive immunity-associated genes, and more genes involved in toll-like receptor signal pathway than those in complement and…
The stingless bee Melipona bicolor is the only bee in which true polygyny occurs. Its mitochondrial genome was first sequenced in 2008, but it was incomplete and no information about its transcription was known. We combined short and long reads of M. bicolor DNA with RNASeq data to obtain insights about mitochondrial evolution and gene expression in bees. The complete genome has 15,001?bp, including a control region of 255?bp that contains all conserved structures described in honeybees with the highest AT content reported so far for bees (98.1%), displaying a compact but functional region. Gene expression control is similar to…
Oral azithromycin given during labour reduces carriage of bacteria responsible for neonatal sepsis, including Staphylococcus aureus. However, there is concern that this may promote drug resistance.Here, we combine genomic and epidemiological data on S. aureus isolated from mothers and babies in a randomized intra-partum azithromycin trial (PregnAnZI) to describe bacterial population dynamics and resistance mechanisms.Participants from both arms of the trial, who carried S. aureus in day 3 and day 28 samples post-intervention, were included. Sixty-six S. aureus isolates (from 7 mothers and 10 babies) underwent comparative genome analyses and the data were then combined with epidemiological data. Trial registration…
Pasteurella multocida causes respiratory infectious diseases in a multitude of birds and mammals. A number of virulence-associated genes were reported across different strains of P. multocida, including those involved in the iron transport and metabolism. Comparative iron-associated genes of P. multocida among different animal hosts towards their interaction networks have not been fully revealed. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the iron-associated genes from core- and pan-genomes of fourteen P. multocida strains and to construct iron-associated protein interaction networks using genome-scale network analysis which might be associated with the virulence. Results showed that these fourteen strains had 1587 genes in…