Scotland’s Leslie paper mill controls the water entering the Leven river through the Loch Leven Sluice House. (Image by Brian Forbes via Flickr/Creative Commons)
During the DOE JGI User Meeting held in Walnut Creek, Calif. from March 22-24, 2011, collaborator Daniel Distel noted that more than 20 enzymes are needed to break down cellulose.
To assist in identifying novel cellulose degraders and thus improve cellulosic biofuel production processes, a team of DOE JGI researchers including Microbial Program head TanjaWoyke and collaborators Garret Suen and Cameron Currie from the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center and the University of Wisconsin-Madison reported the 4.7 Mb genome sequence of a bacterium that thrives in river sediment from a local paper mill in a paper published online March 11, 2011 in the Journal of Bacteriology.
Isolated from sediment taken from Scotland’s River Don, Cellulolyticumlentocellumis the first complete genome sequence from a subgroup of Clostridia bacteria that also includes anaerobic bacteria from no-oxygen sediments and herbivores. Prior to April 2010, the bacterium was known as Clostridium lentocellum, untiltaxonomic researchers proposed reclassifying it as Cellulolyticumlentocellum.
Sequencing was done by the DOE JGI using both 454 Titanium and Illumina platforms. The Illumina data was checked using the DOE JGI’s Polisher software and the genome assembly was reviewed using the DOE JGI’sgapResolution software. The genome was annotated by DOE JGI researchers including Loren Hauser and Miriam Land at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.