Draft genome analysis of Dietzia sp. 111N12-1, isolated from the South China Sea with bioremediation activity.

Dietzia sp. 111N12-1, isolated from the seawater of South China Sea, shows strong petroleum hydrocarbons degradation activity. Here, we report the draft sequence of approximately 3.7-Mbp genome of this strain. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first genome sequence of Dietzia strain isolated from the sea. The genome sequence may provide fundamental molecular information on elucidating the metabolic pathway of hydrocarbons degradation in this strain.

Genome Announcement

Dietzia sp. is a Gram-positive bacteria belonging to the order actinomycetales. Owing to their ability to degrade petroleum hydrocarbons and crude oil, members of the genus Dietzia have gained considerable economic importance and research focus.1, 2 Although species from nearly 65 genera have the ability to degrade hydrocarbons and are widely distributed in nature, few are known to utilize a wide range of n-alkanes. Recently few of the Dietzia strains have been reported to act on a wide range of saturated hydrocarbons,1, 2 and also possess the unique ability to degrade aromatic compounds including naphthalene, phenanthrene, benzoate and fluoranthene, amongst others. The ability to degrade n-alkanes has been attributed to the presence of two key genes in the genome of hydrocarbon degrading bacteria, the integral-membrane alkane monooxygenase (AlkB)-like hydroxylases and cytochrome P450 enzyme CYP153. Although several strains of Dietzia sp. have been sequenced before,4, 5, 6 yet a high quality genome of a marine Dietzia strain from the South China Sea is entirely lacking. Here, we report the complete genome sequence of Dietzia sp. 111N12-1, isolated from the seawater of South China Sea.

Dietzia sp. 111N12-1 was cultured in 2216E medium and incubated at 25 °C, 200 rpm for 48 h. The genomic DNA was isolated using commercially available DNA extraction kit from TIANGEN Biotech (Beijing), China. The genome sequence of Dietzia sp. 111N12-1 was obtained by paired-end sequencing on Illumina MiSeq platform at MajorBio, Shanghai. Reads were assembled using SOAPdenovo software v2.04. Protein-coding sequences were predicted by Glimmer software v3.02 and annotated using BLAST searches of non-redundant (nr) protein sequences from the NCBI, COG, Gene Ontology (GO) and KEGG database. rRNA genes were detected using RNAmmer software and tRNA genes were detected using tRNAscane-SE. To scan for the presence of hydrocarbon degrading genes, the sequence of AlkB like hydroxylase and CYP153 from various available Dietzia strains were blasted (tblastx, NCBI) against the draft genome of Dietzia sp. 111N12-1. The gene sequences were aligned using the software ClustalW2.

The draft genome of Dietzia sp. 111N12-1 comprises 114 scaffolds, with an N50 125,068 bp, approximately 3.7-Mbp with 70.24% GC content. The size of the genome is larger than that of previously sequenced Dietzia cinnamea strain P4 (3.5-Mbp) and Dietzia alimentaria 72T (3.3-Mbp), but was smaller than Dietzia sp. strain UCD-THP (3.9-Mbp), with GC content more or less similar to the three sequenced strains.4, 5, 6 The genome of Dietzia sp. 111N12-1 encodes 3570 proteins, and the total length of genes was 3,321,267 bp, which makes up for 87.9% of the genome. The genome also encodes 49 tRNAs and 2 rRNAs. The gene encoding putative CYP153 protein was identified which contains 446 predicted amino acids. It shared a 99% and 99% amino acid similarity with CYP153 proteins from Dietzia sp. strain UCD-THP and D. cinnamea strain P4, respectively. Similarly, AlkB like hydroxylase was 83% and 82% identity to from Dietzia sp. strain UCD-THP and D. cinnamea strain P4, respectively. This study provided an excellent platform to study the genetics and physiology of a potent bioremediation tool from the South China Sea.

Nucleotide sequence accession number

This Whole Genome Sequencing project has been deposited at DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank under the accession LSSV00000000.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.