News Section | Genomics
Genomics at the creamery
An international consortium of researchers has sequenced the genomes of two strains of the beneficial lactic acid bacterium Streptococcus thermophilus. The organism is widely used in cheese and yogurt production and therefore of great interest to food and dairy manufacturers. It is also a close relative of pathogenic bacteria that cause illnesses ranging from strep throats to more severe cases of meningitis and septic shock.
In the December issue of Nature Biotechnology, Dusko Ehrlich and his colleagues report the complete sequences of the two genomes and analyze the approximately 1,900 genes contained in each of them. The sequences reveal that the bug’s surroundings have resulted in the loss of many of its genes for carbon metabolism over many thousands of years of evolution. What’s more, a comparative analysis with the genomes of pathogenic streptococcus strains reveals sequence differences that may account for differences in virulence and also help researchers assess the safety of S. thermophilus for human consumption
External Links :
Complete sequence and comparative genome analysis of the dairy bacterium Streptococcus thermophilus
Alexander Bolotin et al. Nature Biotechnology December 2004, Volume 22 No 12 , pp 1554 – 1558
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