Abstract
Thermus thermophilus HB27 is an extremely thermophilic, halotolerant bacterium, which was originally isolated from a natural thermal environment in Japan. This organism has considerable biotechnological potential; many thermostable proteins isolated from members of the genus Thermus are indispensable in research and in industrial applications. We present here the complete genome sequence of T. thermophilus HB27, the first for the genus Thermus. The genome consists of a 1,894,877 base pair chromosome and a 232,605 base pair megaplasmid, designated pTT27. The 2,218 identified putative genes were compared to those of the closest relative sequenced so far, the mesophilic bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans. Both organisms share a similar set of proteins, although their genomes lack extensive synteny. Many new genes of potential interest for biotechnological applications were found in T. thermophilus HB27. Candidates include various proteases and key enzymes of other fundamental biological processes such as DNA replication, DNA repair and RNA maturation.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Reinhard Sterner and Wolfgang Liebl for advice and discussions that helped to shape this project. We thank Takayuki Hoshino for strain confirmation. This work was supported by a grant of the Niedersächisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur to the Göttingen Genomics Laboratory and by funds of the Competence Network Göttingen “Genome Research on Bacteria” financed by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
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Henne, A., Brüggemann, H., Raasch, C. et al. The genome sequence of the extreme thermophile Thermus thermophilus. Nat Biotechnol 22, 547–553 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt956
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt956
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