Pre_GI: SWBIT SVG BLASTN

Query: NC_003030:3251941 Clostridium acetobutylicum ATCC 824, complete genome

Lineage: Clostridium acetobutylicum; Clostridium; Clostridiaceae; Clostridiales; Firmicutes; Bacteria

General Information: This strain was isolated in 1924 from garden soil in Connecticut, USA, by E. Wyer and L. Rettger. It is one of the best studied solventogenic clostridia. Solvent-producing bacterium. This genus comprises about 150 metabolically diverse species of anaerobes that are ubiquitous in virtually all anoxic habitats where organic compounds are present, including soils, aquatic sediments and the intestinal tracts of animals and humans. This shape is attributed to the presence of endospores that develop under conditions unfavorable for vegetative growth and distend single cells terminally or sub-terminally. Spores germinate under conditions favorable for vegetative growth, such as anaerobiosis and presence of organic substrates. It is believed that present day Mollicutes (Eubacteria) have evolved regressively (i.e., by genome reduction) from gram-positive clostridia-like ancestors with a low GC content in DNA. This organism is a benign saccharolytic and proteolytic soil bacterium capable of producing a number of organic solvents (solventogenic bacterium) through fermentation of various organic compounds. acetobutyricum were isolated by Chaim Weizman during the World War I and used to develop industrial starch-based acetone, butanol and ethanol fermentation processes.

Subject: NC_013418:459650 Blattabacterium sp. (Periplaneta americana) str. BPLAN, complete

Lineage: Blattabacterium; Blattabacterium; Blattabacteriaceae; Flavobacteriales; Bacteroidetes; Bacteria

General Information: This organism is the endosymbiont of the American cockroach, Periplaneta americana. It is a Gram-negative maternally inherited bacteria which lives in specialized cells in the host's abdominal fat body. Phylogenetic analyses for the Blattabacterium-cockroach symbiosis supports the hypothesis of co-evolution between symbionts and hosts dating back to more than 140 million years ago. Cockroaches are omnivorous insects, often subsisting on a nitrogen-poor diet, and Blattabacterium have been hypothesized to participate in uric acid degradation, nitrogen assimilation, and nutrient provisioning. Genome sequencing and metabolic reconstruction shows that Blattabacterium can recycle nitrogen from urea and ammonia, which are uric acid degradation products, into glutamate, using urease and glutamate dehydrogenase, and thus would be able to provide its host with some essential amino acids, vitamins and cofactors. The bacterium relies on asparagine and glutamine supplied by the host; it may be able to make proline from arginine via the urea cycle.