JRA2:. Lactobacillus acidophilus DSM 9126

The complete genome sequences of several pairs of closely related prokaryotes are now available. Surprisingly, even strains of the same species can differ by as much as 20 % in gene content. Several analyses of very closely related genomes comparisons reported over the last years show that there may be as much to learn about diversity. Extensive genomic comparisons are possible not only between representatives of distant evolutionary phyla, but also between species of the same phylogenetic branch where individual evolutionary events can be more readily identified. They also indicate that sequencing of one representative genome give us nowhere near a complete picture of the genetic repertoire of any species, and that new and comparative methods will be required. Remarkable innovation in sequencing technologies has been achieved making them high-throughput, faster and more cost effective. The sequencing field has experienced a major shift by the introduction of innovation sequencing technologies capable of generating sequence data at a fraction of the cost and much quicker when compared to the Sanger method. Bacteria are characterized by extensive intraspecies variation. There is not only the sequence variation found in all species, but also the presence or absence of whole genes or clusters of genes. We propose to apply the sequencing technology developed by Illumina on several strains of Lactobacillus acidophilus and helveticus to enable a comparative study that will link genotype and phenotype at the genomic level.