Aerobic methane oxidation catalyzed by bacteria is a key step in the global carbon cycle. The process has great importance for the Earth’s climate by reducing the amount of the potent greenhouse gas methane released from habitats such as wetlands and lakes to the atmosphere and by the consumption of atmospheric methane in upland soils….
Why Sequence a Benzene-Degrading Methanogenic Consortium?
As recently as the 1990’s, aromatic hydrocarbons like benzene and toluene were thought to be resistant to degradation under anaerobic conditions. It is now appreciated that biodegradation in the absence of oxygen contributes significantly to the attenuation of hydrocarbons and other pollutants in the environment. Unravelling the yet unknown pathways and mechanisms of anaerobic benzene…
Why Sequence Burkholderia?
Burkholderia species have tremendous versatility: they can efficiently degrade pollutants in water and soil, fix atmospheric nitrogen, or help plants fight against their pathogens; hence they contribute to a healthy, CO2-fixing ecosystem. Burkholderia also occupy diverse habitats from soil to rhizosphere (root zone) to water to intimate associations with plants and animals, even living intracellularly…
Why Sequence Beggiatoa alba?
Prokaryotes are key players in the global sulfur cycle, which is one of the major element cycles on earth (the carbon, nitrogen, and iron cycles being the others). This project involves obtaining the genome sequence of the sulfide oxidizing gamma-proteobacterium Beggiatoa alba B18LD (type strain). The ecologically successful genus Beggiatoa is worldwide in its distribution….
Why Sequence Actinobacteria?
Bioremediation of toxic pollutants has been extensively studied as a cleanup strategy over the last 40 years, but it is often limited by a lack of microorganisms having the genes and corresponding enzymes necessary to degrade recalcitrant compounds. Another problem is that sometimes the target compound is only partially degraded, leading to accumulation of toxic…
Why Sequence Bacteroidetes?
Symbiosis is a tremendously creative force in evolution. Prokaryotes in particular are critical partners with eukaryotes: humans rely on symbiotic bacteria in their gut and on their skin; plants depend on symbiotic bacteria and fungi, and many if not most arthropods carry intracellular bacterial symbionts, just to name a few examples. The processes and interactions…
Why Sequence the Mating Loci of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and Volvox carteri?
In order to understand an organism as a whole, it is essential to have a full representation of the genes used in its entire life cycle. The genome assemblies generated by JGI for Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and Volvox carteri came from a single mating type, so a large region of sequence from the opposite mating type…
Why Sequence Thellungiella halophila?
The build-up of salt in agricultural soils is a widespread problem that limits the growth and yield of important crop species worldwide. With few exceptions, crop plants are glycophytes, unable to adapt to the ionic, osmotic, and oxidative stresses induced by elevated levels of salt in the soil. Halophytes are plants that are capable of…
Why Sequence the Two-Spotted Spider Mite?
The two-spotted spider mite Tetranychus urticae belongs to the second largest group of animals, the Chelicerata, which includes spiders, scorpions, mites, and ticks. As representatives of this basal taxon of arthropods, spider mites are of special importance to several areas of science, including phylogenetics, developmental biology, evolution, ecology, and genomics. The most economically significant chelicerates…
Why Sequence Switchgrass?
A long-standing mission of the DOE has been to develop alternative sources of energy from biomass and among the targets is Switchgrass (the genome of which can be accessed at JGI’s Plant Portal, Phytozome): http://bit.ly/JGI-Switchgrass. This native grass has many traits that make it well suited for use as an energy feedstock. Yields of switchgrass are high, averaging…