Microbial Genome Sequencing: Prospects for Development of Novel Vaccines and Anti-Microbial Compounds.

Claire M Fraser

doi:10.1100/tsw.2002.1

Abstract

Since the first genome sequence for a free-living organism, Haemophilus influenzae, was published in 1995[1], more than 50 microbial sequencing projects have been completed. Work is underway on more than 100 microbial genome projects from a diverse group of pathogens, archaea, and species of evolutionary importance (see http://www.tigr.org for a complete list). In the next 2–3 years, international efforts in microbial genome sequencing will generate more than 250 Mbp of DNA sequence containing ~300,000 predicted genes, several times the number of genes expected from completion of the human genome project. Genome sequencing still remains the most robust method for assessing the overall gene complement of any organism and as costs for DNA sequencing have dramatically decreased, the possibility of using this approach to study new species and microbial populations has become more realistic. It is important to keep in mind that all of the work done to date in microbial genomics has focused on species that can be cultured in the laboratory or grown in animal cells. However, uncultured species should be a priority for future genome studies and the technology now exists to allow us to think about microbial community genome projects.

Highlights

Microbial genome sequence data has begun to reveal an enormous biochemical and metabolic complexity in the microbial world
Almost 50% of all predicted coding sequences identified to date are of unknown biological function and approximately 10% of all predicted coding sequences in each species studied with genome analysis to date are unique, having no significant sequence similarity to any other available protein sequence. These data indicate that there is a substantial amount of microbial biology still be elucidated and suggest that the idea of a “model organism” in the microbial world may not be valid, given the vast differences that are observed, even between related species
A significant proportion of larger microbial genomes represent paralogous genes, that is, genes related by duplication rather than by vertical inheritance, and these represent some of the most interesting genes in each species, often with specialized functions

Summary

Introduction

Microbial genome sequence data has begun to reveal an enormous biochemical and metabolic complexity in the microbial world. Almost 50% of all predicted coding sequences identified to date are of unknown biological function and approximately 10% of all predicted coding sequences in each species studied with genome analysis to date are unique, having no significant sequence similarity to any other available protein sequence.

Results

Conclusion