Pacbio reads of 2 strains of Burkholderia cenocepacia and their methyltransferase deletion mutants.

Respiratory tract infections by the opportunistic pathogen Burkholderia cenocepacia often lead to severe lung deterioration in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients. New insights in how to tackle these infections might emerge from the field of epigenetics, as DNA methylation has shown to be an important regulator of gene expression. The present study focused on specific DNA MTases in B. cenocepacia J2315 and K56-2 and their potential role in regulating gene expression. In silico predicted DNA MTase genes BCAL3494 and BCAM0992 were deleted in both strains, and the methylomes as well as phenotypic characteristics of the resulting deletion mutants were determined.