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Published online 12 October 2006 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news061009-10
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Smallest genome clocks in at 182 genes
How much can you remove from a bacterium before it stops working?
How small can a genome get and still run a living organism? Researchers now say that a symbiotic bacterium called Carsonella ruddii, which lives off sap-feeding insects, has taken the record for smallest genome with just 159,662 'letters' (or base pairs) of DNA and 182 protein-coding genes. At one-third the size of previously found 'minimal' organisms, it is smaller than researchers thought they would find.
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