Mycobacterium leprae  The complete sequence and annotation of M. leprae is now available

"Massive gene decay in the leprosy bacillus" Nature 409, 1007-1011 (2001).

S.T. Cole, K. Eiglmeier, J. Parkhill, K.D. James, N.R. Thomson, P.R. Wheeler, N. Honore, T. Ganier, C. Churcher, D. Harris, K. Mungall, D. Basham, D. Brown, T. Chillingworth, R. Connor, R.M. Davies, K. Devlin, S. Duthoy, T. Feltwell, A. Fraser, N. Hamlin, S. Holroyd, T. Hornsby, K. Jagels, C. Lacroix, J. Maclean, S. Moule, L. Murphy, K. Oliver, M.A. Quail, M-A. Rajandream, K.M. Rutherford, S. Rutter, K. Seeger, S. Simon, M. Simmonds, J. Skelton, R. Squares, S. Squares, K. Stevens, K. Taylor, S. Whitehead, J.R. Woodward and B.G. Barrell

The complete sequence is 3,268,203 bp in length with a G+C content of 57.8%, and was generated from a combination of cosmid and whole-genome shotgun sequencing. The start of the sequence is the first base of the dnaA gene, close to the origin of replication. There are 1,604 protein-coding genes and 1,116 pseudogenes. Both the sequence and annotation have been deposited in the public databases with the accession number AL450380.

		M. leprae Data     A hierarchical list of genes, classified by function.     Also available as as a single, gzipped list in tab-delimited format (51 KB).     Access to the annotation by CDS number.     The complete sequence and annotation in Artemis format.     A list of Pfam domains cross-referenced to the genes which contain them     A list of Prosite patterns cross-referenced to the genes which contain them     A list of stable RNAs present in the sequence.     A BLAST server allowing searching of the sequence and predicted CDSs.     The complete gene map, coloured by function, in PDF (507K) format.     FTP access to the sequence and CDS databases.     M. leprae entry in Entrez genomes.     M. tuberculosis vs. M. leprae comparison data.

The Sanger Institute sequenced Mycobacterium leprae in collaboration with the laboratory of Stewart Cole at the Unit de Genetique Moleculaire Bacterienne, Institut Pasteur. The complete sequence was produced from a 6-fold whole genome shotgun of the M. leprae genome, combined with our own cosmid sequences. Previously published cosmid sequences from the same library, produced by GTC, were used for scaffolding purposes only.

Sequencing was funded by the Heiser Program for Research in Leprosy and Tuberculosis of The New York Community Trust, L'Association Raoul Follereau, The Wellcome Trust, ILEP, and the Institut Pasteur.