title: Completion of the genome sequence of Brucella abortus and comparison to the highly similar genomes of Brucella melitensis and Brucella suis.
abstract: Brucellosis is a worldwide disease of humans and livestock that is caused by a number of very closely related classical Brucella species in the alpha-2 subdivision of the Proteobacteria. We report the complete genome sequence of Brucella abortus field isolate 9-941 and compare it to those of Brucella suis 1330 and Brucella melitensis 16 M. The genomes of these Brucella species are strikingly similar, with nearly identical genetic content and gene organization. However, a number of insertion-deletion events and several polymorphic regions encoding putative outer membrane proteins were identified among the genomes. Several fragments previously identified as unique to either B. suis or B. melitensis were present in the B. abortus genome. Even though several fragments were shared between only B. abortus and B. suis, B. abortus shared more fragments and had fewer nucleotide polymorphisms with B. melitensis than B. suis. The complete genomic sequence of B. abortus provides an important resource for further investigations into determinants of the pathogenicity and virulence phenotypes of these bacteria.
authors.affiliation: Bacterial Diseases of Livestock Unit, NADC, ARS, USDA, 2300 Dayton Ave., Ames, IA 50010, USA. shalling@nadc.ars.usda.gov
authors.forename: Shirley M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Halling
authors.forename: Brooke D
authors.initials: BD
authors.lastname: Peterson-Burch
authors.forename: Betsy J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Bricker
authors.forename: Richard L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Zuerner
authors.forename: Zhang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Qing
authors.forename: Ling-Ling
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Vivek
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Kapur
authors.forename: David P
authors.initials: DP
authors.lastname: Alt
authors.forename: Steven C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Olsen
mesh_terms: D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D002003:Brucella abortus / Q000235:genetics*; D017347:Brucella melitensis / Q000235:genetics; D041021:Brucella suis / Q000235:genetics; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000032:analysis; D016680:Genome, Bacterial; D023281:Genomics; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D004269:DNA, Bacterial