The Sanger Institute has published the sequences of Bordetella pertussis strain Tohama I, B. parapertussis strain 12822 and B. bronchiseptica strain RB50, in collaboration with Duncan Maskell and Andrew Preston of the Centre for Veterinary Science, Dept. of Clinical Veterinary medicine, The University of Cambridge.

The genomes of B. pertussis (4,086,189 bp), B. parapertussis (4,773,551 bp) and B. bronchiseptica (5,339,179 bp) are available for download in Artemis format by FTP and can be searched using our BLAST server. Comparison files in ACT format are also available for download.

The annotation for the three Bordetella genomes is now accessible through GeneDB. GeneDB allows searching, browsing and download of the full annotation.

The sequences and analysis are described in: Parkhill et al (2003) Comparative analysis of the genome sequences of Bordetella pertussis, Bordetella parapertussis and Bordetella bronchiseptica. Nature Genetics 35 32-40 (DOI: 10.1038/Ng1227), and have been submitted to EMBL/GenBank with the accession numbers: BX470248 (B. pertussis), BX470249 (B. parapertussis) and BX470250 (B. bronchiseptica).

A PDF file for the article is available.

The three sequenced Bordetella strains have been deposited with the ATCC and NCTC under the following accession numbers:

• Bordetella parapertussis 12822: ATCC BAA-587, NCTC 13253

• Bordetella bronchiseptica RB50: ATCC BAA-588, NCTC 13252

• Bordetella pertussis Tohama I: ATCC BAA-589, NCTC 13251

We have have also sequenced three closely related isolates of a B. pertussis bacteriophage that exhibited a novel mechanism of host range variation. The mechanism is described in Liu et al, Science 295, 2091 (2002), and the bacteriophage sequences were published in Liu et al, J Bacteriol 186, 1503-1517 (2004), and are available from Genbank/EMBL as: AY029185, AY526908 and AY526909.

Bordetella bronchiseptica complex sequencing

The Sanger Institute has initiated a project to sequence further strains within the Bordetella bronchiseptica complex to investigate the evolutionary history and host tropism differences within this group of organsims. The strain selection is based on the MLST tree published in Diavatopoulos et al, PLoS Pathog. 1, e45 (2005).

This work is being done in collaboration with Dr. Craig Cummings and Prof. David Relman (Relman Lab, Dept. of Microbiology and Immunology, SUMC, Stanford University), Prof. Eric Harvill (Centre for Infectious Disease Dynamics, Penn State University), Dr. Andrew Preston (Univeristy of Bristol), Dr. Frits Mooi (Laboratory for Infectious Diseases and Perinatal Screening, National Institute of Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, Netherlands) and Dr. Jeff F. Miller (Department of Micribiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics, UCLA).

The strains currently selected for sequencing are :

B. bronchiseptica strain 253 (ST27)

• Status: shotgun sequencing
• Assembly: 222 contigs >1kb (83 contigs >2kb); total size 5.690 Mb
• Shotgun: 96,961 reads totalling 57.576 Mb, theoretical genome coverage of 99.99%

B. pertussis strain 18323 (ST24)

• Status: shotgun sequencing
• Assembly: 19 contigs >1kb (11 contigs >2kb); total size 4.053 Mb
• Shotgun: 72,504 reads totalling 42.022 Mb, theoretical genome coverage of 99.99%