Complete genome sequence of Isosphaera pallida type strain (IS1BT)

Isosphaera pallida (ex Woronichin 1927) Giovannoni et al. 1995 is the type species of the genus Isosphaera. The species is of interest because it was the first heterotrophic bacterium known to be phototactic, and it occupies an isolated phylogenetic position within the Planctomycetaceae. Here we describe the features of this organism, together with the complete genome sequence and annotation. This is the first complete genome sequence of a member of the genus Isosphaera and the third of a member of the family Planctomycetaceae. The 5,472,964 bp long chromosome and the 56,340 bp long plasmid with a total of 3,763 protein-coding and 60 RNA genes are part of the Genomic Encyclopedia of Bacteria and Archaea project.


Introduction
Strain IS1B T (= ATCC 43644) is the type strain of Isosphaera pallida which in turn is the type and sole species of the genus Isosphaera [1,2]. The genus Isosphaera is one out of nine genera in the family Planctomycetaceae [3]. The genus name is derived from the Greek adjective isos, equal and sphaera, a ball, globe, yielding Isosphaera, sphere of equal size [4]. The species epithet pallida is derived from the Latin adjective pallida, pale [1]. Strain IS1B T was isolated from a hot spring in Kahnee-tah, Oregon, USA [1]. Other closely related strains belonging to the species were isolated from several warm springs in North America [1]. The cells resemble Isocystis pallida Worochin 1927 [5] which was previously described as a cyanobacterium and later as a yeast. Here we present a summary classification and a set of features for I. pallida strain IS1B T , together with the description of the complete genomic sequencing and annotation.

Classification and features
A representative genomic 16S rRNA sequence of strain IS1B T was compared using NCBI BLAST under default values (e.g., considering only the best 250 hits) with the most recent release of the Greengenes database [6] and the relative frequen-cies, weighted by BLAST scores, of taxa and keywords (reduced to their stem [7]) were determined. The five most frequent genera were Isosphaera (35.4%), Nostocoida (26.4%; a genus with Candidatus status [8]), Singulisphaera (20.4%), 'Isophaera' (15.9%; a misspelling of Isosphaera) and Planctomyces (1.9%). The species yielding the highest score was Candidatus Nostocoida limicola [8]. The five most frequent keywords within the labels of environmental samples which yielded hits were 'skin' (3.9%), 'soil' (3.0%), 'fossa' (2.2%), 'adult, zebrafish' (2.2%) and 'microbi' (1.9%). The two most frequent keywords within the labels of environmental samples which yielded hits of a higher score than the highest scoring species were 'adult, zebrafish' (10.0%) and 'conventionally-rais, digest, gender, germ-fre, gut, habitat, host, mice, micro-biota, mix, pool, recipi, reciproc, select, tract, transplant' (5.0%), i.e. many ties occurred, rendering it difficult to ecologically interpret this outcome. Figure 1 shows the phylogenetic neighborhood of I. pallida IS1B T in a 16S rRNA based tree. The sequences of the three copies in the genome do not differ from each other, and differ by two nucleotides from the previously published 16S rRNA sequence (AJ231195). Cells of strain IS1B T are spherical with 2.5 to 3 µm in diameter ( Figure 2 and Table 1), with cell growth and division occurring by intercalary budding, resulting in filaments [1]. The cells are salmon-colored (caused by carotenoids), contain gas vesicles and resemble Isocystis pallida Worochin 1927 [5]. Ultra-thin sections observed by TEM revealed pit-like ultrastructural features in the cell wall [1,24]. The cells contain numerous pili (not visible in Figure 2) but no flagella, and form motile phototactic "comets" in liquid cultures or on media containing Gelrite ® as the solidifying agent [1].

Figure 1.
Phylogenetic tree highlighting the position of I. pallida relative to the other type strains within the class family Planctomycetacia. The tree was inferred from 1,362 aligned characters [9,10] of the 16S rRNA gene sequence under the maximum likelihood criterion [11] and rooted in with members of the class Phycisphaerae. The branches are scaled in terms of the expected number of substitutions per site. Numbers above branches are support values from 450 bootstrap replicates [12] if larger than 60%. Lineages with type strain genome sequencing projects registered in GOLD [13] are shown in blue, published genomes in bold [14,15].  Altitude not reported Evidence codes -IDA: Inferred from Direct Assay (first time in publication); TAS: Traceable Author Statement (i.e., a direct report exists in the literature); NAS: Non-traceable Author Statement (i.e., not directly observed for the living, isolated sample, but based on a generally accepted property for the species, or anecdotal evidence). These evidence codes are from of the Gene Ontology project [23]. If the evidence code is IDA, the property was observed by one of the authors or an expert mentioned in the acknowledgements.

Chemotaxonomy
Muramic acid and diaminopimelic acid are absent from the cell wall [1,24], like in other members of the Planctomycetes. Cells stain Gram-negative but lack an outer membrane [1]. Cells possess a proteinaceous cell wall structure without cysteine, methionine, proline and tryptophan [24]. Esterlinked lipids with predominantly unbranched C14 and C18 fatty acids, traces of C18:1 acids, no hydroxyl-fatty acids [24].

Genome sequencing and annotation Genome project history
This organism was selected for sequencing on the basis of its phylogenetic position [25], and is part of the Genomic Encyclopedia of Bacteria and Archaea project [26]. The genome project is deposited in the Genomes OnLine Database [13] and the complete genome sequence is deposited in GenBank. Sequencing, finishing and annotation were performed by the DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI). A summary of the project information is shown in Table 2.

Growth conditions and DNA isolation
I. pallida IS1B T , ATCC 43644, has been in the American Type Culture Collection since July 1987.
The culture used at ATCC to prepare genomic DNA (gDNA) for sequencing was only two transfers away from the original deposit. The purity of the culture was determined by growth in ATCC medium 1962 Broth [27] at 45 o C under aerobic conditions. Cells were harvested by centrifugation after 72 hours of incubation. The cell pellet exhibited a salmon color. Genomic DNA was extracted from lysozyme-treated cells using a standard CTAB and phenol-chloroform protocol. The purity, quality and size of the bulk gDNA preparation were assessed according to DOE-JGI guidelines. Amplification and partial sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene confirmed the isolate as I. pallida. The quantity of the DNA was determined on a 1% agarose using gel mass markers of known concentration supplied by JGI. The average fragment size of the purified gDNA determined to be ~43 kb by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis.

Genome sequencing and assembly
The genome was sequenced using a combination of Illumina and 454 sequencing platforms. All general aspects of library construction and sequencing can be found at the JGI website [28]. Pyrosequencing reads were assembled using the Newbler assembler version 2.0.00.20-PostRelease-11-05-2008-gcc-3.4.6 (Roche). The initial Newbler assembly, consisting of 36 contigs in 1 scaffold, was converted into a phrap assembly by making fake reads from

Genome annotation
Genes were identified using Prodigal [33] as part of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory genome annotation pipeline, followed by a round of manual curation using the JGI GenePRIMP pipeline [34]. The predicted CDSs were translated and used to search the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) nonredundant database, Uni-Prot, TIGRFam, Pfam, PRIAM, KEGG, COG, and In-terPro databases. Additional gene prediction analysis and functional annotation was performed within the Integrated Microbial Genomes -Expert Review (IMG-ER) platform [35].

Genome properties
The genome consists of a 5,472,964 bp long chromosome with a 62% GC content and a 56,340 bp plasmid with 67% GC content (Figures 3a and 3b and Table 3). Of the 3,823 genes predicted, 3,763 were protein-coding genes, and 60 RNAs; 41 pseudogenes were identified. The majority of the protein-coding genes (59.7%) were assigned with a putative function while the remaining ones were annotated as hypothetical proteins. The distribution of genes into COGs functional categories is presented in Table 4.