Article
Nature 390, 364-370 (27 November 1997) | doi:10.1038/37052; Received 9 September 1997; Accepted 4 November 1997
The complete genome sequence of the hyperthermophilic, sulphate-reducing archaeon Archaeoglobus fulgidus
Hans-Peter Klenk1, Rebecca A. Clayton1, Jean-Francois Tomb1, Owen White1, Karen E. Nelson1, Karen A. Ketchum1, Robert J. Dodson1, Michelle Gwinn1, Erin K. Hickey1, Jeremy D. Peterson1, Delwood L. Richardson1, Anthony R. Kerlavage1, David E. Graham2, Nikos C. Kyrpides2, Robert D. Fleischmann1, John Quackenbush1, Norman H. Lee1, Granger G. Sutton1, Steven Gill1, Ewen F. Kirkness1, Brian A. Dougherty1, Keith McKenney1, Mark D. Adams1, Brendan Loftus1, Scott Peterson1, Claudia I. Reich2, Leslie K. McNeil2, Jonathan H. Badger2, Anna Glodek1, Lixin Zhou1, Ross Overbeek3, Jeannine D. Gocayne1, Janice F. Weidman1, Lisa McDonald1, Teresa Utterback1, Matthew D. Cotton1, Tracy Spriggs1, Patricia Artiach1, Brian P. Kaine2, Sean M. Sykes1, Paul W. Sadow1, Kurt P. D'Andrea1, Cheryl Bowman1, Claire Fujii1, Stacey A. Garland1, Tanya M. Mason1, Gary J. Olsen2, Claire M. Fraser1, Hamilton O. Smith1, Carl R. Woese2 and J. Craig Venter1
- The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), Rockville, Maryland 20850, USA
- Department of Microbiology, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA
- Mathematics and Computer Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Illinois 60439, USA
Correspondence to: J. Craig Venter1 Correspondence and requests for materialsshould be addressed to J.C.V.(e-mail: Email: gaf@tigr.org).The annotated genome sequence and the gene family alignments are available on the World-Wide Web athttp://www.tigr.org/tdb/mdb/afdb/afdb.html. The sequence has been deposited in GenBank with accession number AE000782.
Abstract
Archaeoglobus fulgidus is the first sulphur-metabolizing organism to have its genome sequence determined. Its genome of 2,178,400 base pairs contains 2,436 open reading frames (ORFs). The information processing systems and the biosynthetic pathways for essential components (nucleotides, amino acids and cofactors) have extensive correlation with their counterparts in the archaeon Methanococcus jannaschii . The genomes of these two Archaea indicate dramatic differences in the way these organisms sense their environment, perform regulatory and transport functions, and gain energy. In contrast to M. jannaschii , A. fulgidus has fewer restriction–modification systems, and none of its genes appears to contain inteins. A quarter (651 ORFs) of the A. fulgidus genome encodes functionally uncharacterized yet conserved proteins, two-thirds of which are shared with M. jannaschii (428 ORFs). Another quarter of the genome encodes new proteins indicating substantial archaeal gene diversity.