Metagenomic islands of hyperhalophiles: the case of Salinibacter ruber.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Saturated brines are extreme environments of low diversity. Salinibacter ruber is the only bacterium that inhabits this environment in significant numbers. In order to establish the extent of genetic diversity in natural populations of this microbe, the genomic sequence of reference strain DSM 13855 was compared to metagenomic fragments recovered from climax saltern crystallizers and obtained with 454 sequencing technology. This kind of analysis reveals the presence of metagenomic islands, i.e. highly variable regions among the different lineages in the population.

Results

Three regions of the sequenced isolate were scarcely represented in the metagenome thus appearing to vary among co-occurring S. ruber cells. These metagenomic islands showed evidence of extensiv

SUBMITTER: Pasic L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2800850 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature