Cellulosimicrobium sp. TH-20 Genome sequencing. Cellulosimicrobium sp. TH-20

Cellulosimicrobium sp. TH-20 which was isolated from ginseng soil samples was identified to produce enzymes contributing to its excellent biotransformation activity against ginsenosides, the main active components of ginseng.Based on phylogenetic tree and homology analysis, the strain can be designated as Cellulosimicrobium sp. In order to explore the functional genes involved in ginsenosides transformation, genome sequencing was performed using the Illumina Miseq. The draft genome of Cellulosimicrobium sp. TH-20 encoded 3450 open reading frames (ORFs), 51 tRNA and 9 rRNA. All of the ORFs were annotated using NCBI BLAST with non-redundant proteins (Nr), Gene Ontology (GO), Cluster of Orthologous Gene (COG) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) databases. On the basis of these functional annotation analysis, 11 genes were selected that are relevant to ginsenoside biotransformation including 6 for beta-glucosidase, 1 for alpha-N-arabinofuranosidase, 1 for alpha-1,6-glucosidase, 1 for endo-1,4-beta-xylanase, 1 for alpha-L-arabinofuranosidase and 1 for beta-galactosidase. These glycosidases were predicted to catalyze the hydrolysis of sugar moieties attached to the aglycon of ginsenosides and led to the transformation of PPD-type and PPT-type ginsenosides.