Zymomonas mobilis is currently considered as the bacterial alternative to yeast in bioethanol production and is employed in industrial fermentations in the United States, Canada and other parts of the world. The DOE JGI is currently sequencing five different strains of Z. mobilis and also multiple plasmids of industrial ZM4. This project calls for resequencing Z. mobilis strain ZM4 and for sequencing specifically the transcriptomes of all six bacterial genomes being worked on at the DOE JGI.
Photo: KM Pappas
Though the genome of ZM4 strain has already been sequenced and published, re-examining the genome at a raw-data level allows researchers to gain a more accurate sequence that can then be used for genetic and bioinformatics analyses with other Z. mobilis genomic data. Additionally, having the portion of the genome that is responsible for gene expression and function for several Z. mobilis strains will allow researchers to conduct more comparative genomic analyses that could identify more hypothetical or unexpected genes.
Principal Investigators: Katherine Pappas, University of Athens
Program: CSP 2010