OPEN Extraordinary expansion of a Sorangium SUBJECT AREAS: cellulosum genome from an alkaline ENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOLOGY milieu BACTERIA Kui Han1, Zhi-feng Li1, Ran Peng1, Li-ping Zhu1, Tao Zhou2, Lu-guang Wang1, Shu-guang Li1, MICROBIAL GENETICS Xiao-bo Zhang2, Wei Hu1, Zhi-hong Wu1, Nan Qin2 & Yue-zhong Li1 MICROBIAL ECOLOGY 1State Key Laboratory of Microbial Technology, School of Life Science, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China, 2Beijing Received Genomics Institute, Shenzhen, 518083, China. 4 March 2013 Accepted Complex environmental conditions can significantly affect bacterial genome size by unknown mechanisms. 13 June 2013 The So0157-2 strain of Sorangium cellulosum is an alkaline-adaptive epothilone producer that grows across Published a wide pH range. Here, we show that the genome of this strain is 14,782,125 base pairs, 1.75-megabases larger than the largest bacterial genome from S. cellulosum reported previously. The total 11,599 coding 1 July 2013 sequences (CDSs) include massive duplications and horizontally transferred genes, regulated by lots of protein kinases, sigma factors and related transcriptional regulation co-factors, providing the So0157-2 strain abundant resources and flexibility for ecological adaptation. The comparative transcriptomics Correspondence and approach, which detected 90.7% of the total CDSs, not only demonstrates complex expression patterns requests for materials under varying environmental conditions but also suggests an alkaline-improved pathway of the insertion and duplication, which has been genetically testified, in this strain. These results provide insights into and a should be addressed to paradigm for how environmental conditions can affect bacterial genome expansion. Y.-Z.L. (
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