Draft Genome Sequence of Lactobacillus plantarum Strain WJL, a Drosophila Gut Symbiont.

Lactobacillus plantarum strain WJL, a member of the symbiotic gut bacteria, was isolated from the intestine of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. Here, we report the draft genome sequence of L. plantarum WJL.

GENOME ANNOUNCEMENT

Lactobacillus plantarum is a Gram-positive, lactic acid-producing bacterium that is found in a variety of environmental niches (1). Interestingly, L. plantarum is frequently observed as a member of commensal bacteria in the metazoan gut, ranging from the fly to the human gastrointestinal tract (2, 3). Although this bacterium is generally considered to be a symbiont that induces beneficial effects in its host, the molecular mechanism by which L. plantarum impacts host physiology is largely unknown. Drosophila, a classical animal model for developmental biology and innate immunity, is now being introduced to the field of gut–microbiota interactions (4). L. plantarum strain WJL was originally isolated as a member of the symbiotic bacteria from the Drosophila gut (5). This bacterium is capable of colonizing gut epithelia without provoking host gut immunity (6). Recent genetic analyses further showed that L. plantarum WJL stimulates the target of sirolimus kinase activity in the host, especially under poor nutritional conditions, to promote systemic larval growth by optimizing integrated hormone signaling pathways (7). In the current study, the genomic information of L. plantarum WJL is presented, which is essential to determine the bacterial genes required for a positive impact on the host physiology.

The genome sequence of L. plantarum WJL was analyzed using a 100-bp paired-end library (4,567,308 reads) with the Illumina HiSeq 2000 (Illumina, San Diego, CA). The sequence reads were assembled into 102 contigs using the CLC Genomics Workbench 5.1 (CLC bio, Denmark). The total coverage over the whole genome reached ~198-fold. Functional annotation of the predicted genes was performed using the RAST server (8) and COG (9) database. The genome of L. plantarum WJL was estimated to be 3,477,495 bp, and 3,410 open reading frames (ORFs) were identified, which include 4 rRNA genes and 71 tRNA genes. Among the 3,410 ORFs, only 2,356 (69%) were identified with predicted functions based on homologies to previously known proteins. The G+C content of the genome is 44.24 mol%. Deducing the sequence information improves the feasibility of performing genetic analyses of this bacterium as well as comparative genomics with other Drosophila gut-colonizing lactobacilli, which will provide novel insights into the molecular interactions between lactobacilli and Drosophila gut epithelia.

Nucleotide sequence accession numbers.

The result of this whole-genome shotgun project has been deposited at GenBank under the accession no. AUTE00000000. The version described in this paper is the first version, AUTE01000000.