The sole representative species of the phylum Placozoa, Trichoplax adhaerens represents the simplest known animal, with the smallest known animal genome. The DNA sequence of the 50-Mbp Trichoplax genome will have far-reaching scientific importance, providing significant genomic insights into our understanding of how animal life evolved. This genome will have enormous utility to the scientific…
Why Sequence Selaginella moellendorffii?
The lycophytes are an ancient lineage of vascular plants that arose about 400 million years ago. Lacking true leaves and roots, they are a key node of the plant evolutionary tree. The nuclear genome content of the lycophyte Selaginella moellendorffii (65-88Mbp) has the smallest genome size reported for a land plant species, about two-thirds that…
Why Sequence Bacillus Cereus strains?
The Bacillus cereus group is now attracting the greatest interest among researchers working on bacilli and other gram-positive bacteria. One of the fundamental and practical questions being asked is how the ecological adaptation of these bacteria results in pathogens for animals and insects (like B. anthracis or some B. thuringiensis lines). This has inspired intensive…
Why Sequence Lactobacillus reuteri?
Lactobacillus reuteri is a gram-positive bacterial species that commonly inhabits the gut of mice, poultry, and pigs as a member of the normal microbiota. These bacteria are autochthonous (indigenous) to the gut of these animals because they persist throughout the life of the host at characteristic population sizes in specific regions of the gut. Moreover,…
Why Sequence Contaminated Groundwater?
Because the majority of microorganisms in nature have never been cultured, little is known about their genetic properties, biochemical functions, and metabolic characteristics. Although the sequence of the microbial community “genome” can now be determined with high-throughput sequencing technology, the complexity and magnitude of most microbial communities make meaningful data acquisition and interpretation difficult. Thus,…
Why Sequence Rhodobacter sphaeroides?
How can a photosynthetic bacterium help us understand a fundamental question in evolutionary biology? The acquisition and loss of genetic information permits the adaptation of an organism to an ever-changing environment. However, this genetic flux is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it permits the acquisition of new adaptive traits, but this process may…
Why Sequence a Rhodocyclus-like PAO?
Shotgun sequencing of a simple acid-mine-drainage biofilm community has recently demonstrated that, for one archaeal species population at least, individual genomes are recombinant mosaics (i.e., combinations of segments of genomes) of closely related strains. This suggests that, as in sexual organisms and contrary to current opinion, genetic exchange may be the cohesive force holding microbial…
Why Sequence Prochlorococcus?
The overall goal of this project is to understand the genomic underpinnings of the observed ecological diversity and distribution of Prochlorococcus. This unicellular cyanobacterium is an extremely abundant primary producer in the world’s oceans, is the smallest known oxygenic phototroph, and has a compact genome (as small as 1.7 Mbp). Its abundance and phototrophic metabolism…
Why Sequence Staphylococcus aureus VISA Strains?
The purpose of this sequencing project is to understand the genetic basis of a drug resistance mechanism as it emerges in the in-vivo environment under the selective pressure of the antimicrobial agent vancomycin. The proposal involves sequencing a pair of isogenic methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strains that were recently recovered from a patient undergoing extensive…
Why Sequence Marinobacter aquaeolei?
Iron is the most abundant redox-active element in the solar system and the second most abundant redox-active element in Earth’s crust. The capacity for iron oxidation is broadly distributed among prokaryotes, and the activities of iron-oxidizing bacteria exert critical influence on many major elemental cycles, including the carbon cycle. Despite its importance, the fundamental biology…