The Sanger Institute has completed the sequence of the genome of Clostridium botulinum, in collaboration with Dr. Roger Huston of the Food Microbial Sciences Unit, University of Reading Department of Food Science, Dr. Nigel Minton of the Institute of Infection, Immunity and Inflammation, University of Nottingham, and Dr. M. Peck of the Food Saftey Microbiology Section, Institute of Food Research.

Clostridium botulinum strains produce botulinum neurotoxin, which is the cause of foodborne botulism.

We have sequenced Hall strain A (ATCC 3502). The genome is 3,886,916 bp in size, with a G+C content of approximately 28.2%. There is also a plasmid of 16,344 bp.

The completed sequence is available for searching on our Blast server, or for download from our FTP site.

The sequence and analysis of both the genome and the plasmid are described in Sebaihia et al, Genome Research, epublication and have been submitted to EMBL/GenBank with the accession numbers AM412317 and AM412318.

Shotgun sequencing for strain 17B is in progress and a database of reads is available for download from our FTP site and can be searched through the Blast Server.

At present there are 28,493 reads totalling 18.441 Mb and giving a theoretical coverage of 99.09% of the genome.

Finishing is in progress; a database containing the latest assembly is available in the same way.

At present there are 42 contigs > 1kb (19 contigs >2kb) with a total size of 3.868 Mb.

This project is funded by Beowulf Genomics