Bacteroides fragilis NCTC9343

Click on the image to see a larger picture. Image source: Dr Sheila Patrick. Bacterial Pathogenesis and Genomics Research. Microbiology and Immunobiology. School of Medicine. Queen's University of Belfast.

The Sanger Institute together with Dr. Sheila Patrick (PI) of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Queen's University of Belfast School of Medicine have completed the sequence and annotation of the genome of Bacteroides fragilis NCTC9343, in collaboration with:

• Dr. Garry Blakely of the Institute of Structural and Molecular Biology at the University of Edinburgh (UK),

• Dr. Val Abratt of the Department of Molecular anf Cell Biology at the University of Cape Town (South Africa),

• Prof. Brian Duerden of the Department of Medical Microbiology, University of Wales College of Medicine (UK),

• Prof. Ian Poxton of the Department of Medical Microbiology, University of Edinburgh Medical School (UK).

We have sequenced, annotated and analysed the complete genome of the type strain NCTC9343 (ATCC 25285). An obligate anaerobe, Bacteroides fragilis is usually a commensal organism, forming a large component of the normal human gut microbiota. However it is also an important opportunistic pathogen, with the potential to severly limit the success of gastro-intestinal surgery. The genome is 5,205,140 bp long, with a G+C content of 43.19%. The data is available for download by FTP and can be searched using our BLAST server. You can also download the main chromosome EMBL-format annotated file here and the plasmid here.

Circular representation of the Bacteroides fragilis NCTC9343 genome. Click on image to see a larger picture of the main chromosome and plasmid pBF9343

Publication

The annotation for the B. fragilis genome will be soon accessible through the PSU database GeneDB.
GeneDB allows searching, browsing and download of the full annotation.

Other useful links:

• B. fragilis information from the Medical Microbiology and Infectious diseases Department - College of Medicine. University of Florida (US)

• B. fragilis web page hosted at East Carolina University (US)

• Bacteroides fragilis YCH46 genome @ EBI

• Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron VPI-5482 genome @ EBI

We have now also finished the sequence of strain 638R.
The data from strain 638R is available for download by FTP and can be searched using our BLAST server.

The sequence is 5,373,121 bp with a G+C content of 43.42%.

The shotgun data is still available: There are 81,661 reads in the database, totalling 46.520 Mb, and giving a theoretical coverage of 99.99%.

The annotation, with assigned systematic gene identifiers, is available here in Artemis format.