Data from: Genomes of diverse isolates of the marine cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus

The marine cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus is the numerically dominant
photosynthetic organism in the oligotrophic oceans, and a model system in
marine microbial ecology. Here we report 27 new whole genome sequences (2
complete and closed; 25 of draft quality) of cultured isolates,
representing five major phylogenetic clades of Prochlorococcus. The
sequenced strains were isolated from diverse regions of the oceans,
facilitating studies of the drivers of microbial diversity—both in the lab
and in the field. To improve the utility of these genomes for comparative
genomics, we also define pre-computed clusters of orthologous groups of
proteins (COGs), indicating how genes are distributed among these and
other publicly available Prochlorococcus genomes. These data represent a
significant expansion of Prochlorococcus reference genomes that are useful
for numerous applications in microbial ecology, evolution and
oceanography.