Draft Genome Sequence of Bacillus megaterium Type Strain ATCC 14581 Gitanjali Arya,a Nicholas Petronella,b Jennifer Crosthwait,a Catherine D. Carrillo,c Philip S. Shweda Environmental Health Science and Research Bureau, Environmental and Radiation Health Sciences Directorate, HECSB, Health Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canadaa; Bureau of Food Surveillance and Science Integration, Food Directorate, Health Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canadab; Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Ottawa, Ontario, Canadac Bacillus megaterium is a Gram-positive, rod-shaped, spore-forming bacterium of biotechnological importance. Here, we report a 5.7-Mbp draft genome sequence of B. megaterium ATCC 14581, which is the type strain of the species. Received 7 October 2014 Accepted 8 October 2014 Published 13 November 2014 Citation Arya G, Petronella N, Crosthwait J, Carrillo CD, Shwed PS. 2014. Draft genome sequence of Bacillus megaterium type strain ATCC 14581. Genome Announc. 2(6): e01124-14. doi:10.1128/genomeA.01124-14. Copyright © 2014 Arya et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. Address correspondence to Philip S. Shwed, phil.shwed@hc-sc.gc.ca. Bacillus megaterium is a ubiquitous environmental bacterium. It is economically important for the production of recombi- nant proteins and vitamins, as well as for bioremediation activities (1). The microbe was first described by Anton De Bary in 1884 (2), and later the species was defined in detail by Ford and Lawrence (3) in 1916, from an environmental source isolate. De Bary’s (2) culture of the species went missing and was presumed lost (4, 5); thus, Ford’s strain 19 supplied to contemporary culture collec- tions became the type strain. B. megaterium ATCC 14581T (also DSM32T, NCIMB 9376, NCTC 10342T, BCRC 10608T) features typical traits of the species, and its genome sequence, reported here, may serve as a reference for comparative genomic analysis. Whole-genome sequencing of B. megaterium ATCC 14581T was performed on the Illumina HiSeq platform at the Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre (Vancouver, Canada). A total of 2,908,022 paired-end reads (2 � 100 bp) were generated and assembled de novo using Velvet 1.2.10 (6) and VelvetOptimiser 2.2.5 (http://bioinformatics.net.au/software.velvetoptimiser.shtml). Various hash lengths between 31 and 91 were tested, and the op- timal k-mer size was found to be 71 bp, resulting in a total of 122 contigs, with an N50 length of 324,443 bp and an average 50� genome coverage. After eliminating the contigs sized �199 nucle- otides (nt) (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/genomesub- mit), the draft genome sequence contained 78 contigs. The draft whole-genome size (WGS) is 5.7 Mbp, with a G�C content of 37%, and the assembly appears to be larger than other finished genomes of B. megaterium. The draft genome sequence was anno- tated using the RAST server (7), which predicted 5,955 coding sequences (CDSs) and 84 RNA genes, and it mapped genes to 486 subsystems. Consistent with the previously published genomes of B. mega- terium, that of ATCC 14581T possesses a large syntenic region around the origin of replication, a characteristic feature observed in the genome architecture of the sporulating Bacillus species (8, 9). The draft genome of ATCC 14581T includes genes encoding heavy metal and antibiotic resistance, as well as iron acquisition systems, which are known to be associated with the adaptation and survival of B. megaterium under diverse environmental con- ditions (10, 11). The draft genome is predicted to contain 544 CDSs in the subsystem of carbohydrate utilization, consisting of metabolic pathways, including glyoxylate cycle, glycolysis, and the tricarboxylic acid cycle. The ATCC 14581T CDSs were mapped to a number of transmembrane transport systems, including 18 CDSs involved in ATP-binding cassette transporters, 15 CDSs in- volved in cation transport (copper, magnesium, and nickel), and 34 CDSs involved in protein translocation. Compared to the cur- rent representative genome for the species, strain DSM 319, some of the unique genes found in ATCC 14581T include mobile genetic elements (prophages and transposases) and proteins involved in phosphotransferase uptake systems for the catabolism of the poly- alcohol galactitol and �-glucoside sugar substrates, indicating the ability of B. megaterium to utilize a wide variety of carbon sources. The draft genome of ATCC 14581T will facilitate future biotech- nology applications and comparative genomic and phylogenetic analyses involving strains from different origins. Nucleotide sequence accession numbers. The whole- genome shotgun project of B. megaterium ATCC 14581T has been deposited at DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank under the acces- sion no. JJMH00000000. The version described in the paper is JJMH01000000. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We acknowledge the Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre, Vancouver, Canada, for genome sequencing. This research was supported by the Canadian Regulatory System for Biotechnology. REFERENCES 1. Vary PS, Biedendieck R, Fuerch T, Meinhardt F, Rohde M, Deckwer W-D, Jahn D. 2007. Bacillus megaterium-from simple soil bacterium to industrial protein production host. Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 76: 957–967. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00253-007-1089-3. 2. De Bary A. 1884. Vergleichende morphologie und biologie der pilze. In Mycetozoen und bacterien. 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