Abstract
Genomes of the month
There have been three genomes published since the last Genome Update column was written: Bacteroides fragilis, an opportunistic bacterial pathogen; Cryptococcus neoformans, an encapsulated yeast; and Entamoeba histolytica, an intestinal parasite.
The Bacteroides fragilis NCTC 9343 genome is the fifth member of the Bacteroidetes/Chlorobi group to be sequenced and the second Bacteroides fragilis strain. The Bacteroides fragilis NCTC 9343 genome shows considerable variation even within the same strain and invertable promoters' appear to regulate much of this variance in many surface-exposed and secreted proteins (Cerdeño-Tárraga et al., 2005). Characteristics of the genome are given in Table 1. As discussed below, members of the Bacteroidetes/Chlorobi group appear to have a large fraction of proteins in their genome which are predicted to be secreted compared to other bacterial phyla.