Mycobacterium Genome sequencing and assembly. Mycobacterium

Mycobacterium abscessus is an emergent opportunistic pathogenic mycobacteria that is very difficult to treat due multiple resistance to antibiotics. M. abscessus is frequently involved in pulmonary infection of Cystic Fibrosis patients. The M. abscessus complex was divided in three sub-species (M. abscessus subsp. abscessus, M. abscessus subsp. massiliense, and M. abscessus subsp. bolletii). However, the genetic structure of bacterial populations belonging to M. abscessus complex is still poorly known, and single gene identification often gives ambiguous results. Genome comparison of these three sub-species reference strains shows that these three subspecies of M. abscessus complex are very close. However, although very close to each other, these genomes show great variability due to the presence of many genomic Islands insertions and to homologous recombination. Obtaining the genome sequence of 4 additional Mycobacterium species will help to understand the genomic organization and phylogenetic relations between them, and in comparison to more distant species.