The draft genome of Mycobacterium aurum, a potential model organism for investigating drugs against Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium leprae

Publication date: Available online 4 June 2015 Source:International Journal of Mycobacteriology Author(s): Jody Phelan , Arundhati Maitra , Ruth McNerney , Mridul Nair , Antima Gupta , Francesc Coll , Arnab Pain , Sanjib Bhakta , Taane G. Clark Mycobacterium aurum (M. aurum) is an environmental mycobacteria that has previously been used in studies of anti-mycobacterial drugs due to its fast growth rate and low pathogenicity. The M. aurum genome has been sequenced and assembled into 46 contigs, with a total length of 6.02Mb containing 5684 annotated protein-coding genes. A phylogenetic analysis using whole genome alignments positioned M. aurum close to Mycobacterium vaccae and Mycobacterium vanbaalenii, within a clade related to fast-growing mycobacteria. Large-scale genomic rearrangements were identified by comparing the M. aurum genome to those of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium leprae. M. aurum orthologous genes implicated in resistance to anti-tuberculosis drugs in M. tuberculosis were observed. The sequence identity at the DNA level varied from 68.6% for pncA (pyrazinamide drug-related) to 96.2% for rrs (streptomycin, capreomycin). We observed two homologous genes encoding the catalase-peroxidase enzyme (katG) that is associated with resistance to isoniazid. Similarly, two embB homologues were identified in the M. aurum genome. In addition to describing for the first time the genome of M. aurum, this work provides a resource to aid the use of M....
Source: International Journal of Mycobacteriology - Category: Infectious Diseases Source Type: research