Draft genome sequences of carrageenan-utilizing Alteromonas strains

Marine algae have been expected a feedstock for biorefinery because of no competition with food crops. Macroalgae contain a large amount of polysaccharides. A brown alga Kappa phycusalvarezii contains carrageenans, which are linear sulfated galactans with D-galactose. Depending on the numbers and positions of sulfate groups, many variety of carrageenan exist. Among them, kappa, lambda, and iota-carrageenans are the major compounds. In order to degrade carrageenans into monomer D-galactose, which is used as a carbon source for yeast bioethanol production. We isolated two kappa and lambda-carrageenan utilizing bacteria from the naturally enriched culture in the ocean. The genome sequences of two strains, KC3 and KC14, were determined using illumine MiSeq and Nanopore MinION. We found one carrageenase gene from both strains.