Skip to main content
PMC home page
Genome Announcements logoLink to Genome Announcements
. 2015 Nov 19;3(6):e01367-15. doi: 10.1128/genomeA.01367-15

Complete Genome Sequence of Spiroplasma turonicum Strain Tab4cT, a Parasite of a Horse Fly, Haematopota sp. (Diptera: Tabanidae)

Robert E Davis a,✉, Jonathan Shao a, Yan Zhao a, Gail E Gasparich b, Brady J Gaynor b, Nicole Donofrio c
PMCID: PMC4653801  PMID: 26586899

Abstract

Spiroplasma turonicum was isolated from a Haematopota sp. fly in France. We report the nucleotide sequence of the circular chromosome of strain Tab4cT. The genome information will facilitate evolutionary studies of spiroplasmas, including symbionts of insects and ticks and pathogens of plants, insects, crustaceans, and humans.

GENOME ANNOUNCEMENT

Although the helical, motile, and cell wall-less bacteria termed spiroplasmas were first discovered in plants, spiroplasmas have been isolated from diverse insects, ticks, and crustaceans (1–10). These discoveries and the identification of a human-infecting spiroplasma as a strain of the horse fly (Haematopota sp.) symbiont, Spiroplasma turonicum (11), support the prediction that spiroplasmas exhibit a constant link with arthropods (2).

Here, we report the complete nucleotide sequence of the circular chromosome of S. turonicum strain Tab4cT (American Type Culture Collection, ATCC 700271), which was isolated in axenic culture from a Haematopota sp. fly in France (6). Genomic DNA was extracted from a culture of S. turonicum Tab4cT grown in liquid M1D broth medium, as previously described (12). Nucleotide sequencing was carried out using the next-generation sequencing (NGS) platform of the Pacific Biosciences (PacBio) single-molecule real-time sequencing (SMRT) system, in which 86,887 reads were obtained, totaling 1,193,390,409 nucleotides. The N50 read length was 17,755 nucleotides, the mean read length was 13,734 nucleotides, and the average reference consensus concordance was 100.00%. The assembled circular chromosome of 1,261,374 bp has an overall base composition of 24.20 mol% G+C; the average coverage per base position was 616.05×. The assembled chromosome was put through GeneMark.hmm (13) annotation and was curated by manual inspection using Artemis (14) as an annotation platform. The programs tRNAscan-SE 1.21 and RNAmmer (15) were used to predict regions containing tRNAs and rRNAs, respectively. The chromosome has 1,085 protein coding regions (CDSs), 1 set of rRNA genes, 29 tRNA genes, and a 2,940-bp clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR) locus.

Phylogenetically, S. turonicum clusters with other wall-less bacteria in the class Mollicutes and is a member of the Apis clade, which includes Spiroplasma apis, a pathogen of honey bees (12, 16). The availability of the S. turonicum complete genome sequence will facilitate studies to elucidate the evolutionary biology of spiroplasmas.

Nucleotide sequence accession numbers.

This genome project has been deposited in GenBank under the BioProject ID PRJNA291635, BioSample accession no. SAMN03948565, and GenBank accession no. CP012328.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This work was supported through U.S. Government funds.

Footnotes

Citation Davis RE, Shao J, Zhao Y, Gasparich GE, Gaynor BJ, Donofrio N. 2015. Complete genome sequence of Spiroplasma turonicum strain Tab4cT, a parasite of a horse fly, Haematopota sp. (Diptera: Tabanidae). Genome Announc 3(6):e01367-15. doi:10.1128/genomeA.01367-15.

REFERENCES

  • 1.Davis RE. 1974. Spiroplasma in corn stunt infected individuals of the vector leafhopper Dalbulus maidis. Plant Dis Rep 58:1109–1112. [Google Scholar]
  • 2.Davis RE. 1979. Spiroplasmas: newly recognized arthropod-borne pathogens, p 451–484. In Maramorosch K, Harris KF (ed), Leafhopper vectors and plant disease agents. Academic Press, New York, NY. [Google Scholar]
  • 3.Davis RE. 1981. The enigma of the flower spiroplasmas, p 259–279. In Maramorosch K, Raychaudjuri SP (ed), Mycoplasma diseases of trees and shrubs. Academic Press, New York, NY. [Google Scholar]
  • 4.Davis RE, Worley JF. 1973. Spiroplasma: motile, helical microorganism associated with corn stunt disease. Phytopathology 63:403–408. doi: 10.1094/Phyto-63-403. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  • 5.Davis RE, Worley JF, Whitcomb RF, Ishijima T, Steere RL. 1972. Helical filaments produced by a mycoplasma-like organism associated with corn stunt disease. Science 176:521–523. doi: 10.1126/science.176.4034.521. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 6.Hélias C, Vazeille-Falcoz M, Le Goff F, Abalain-Colloc M-L, Rodhain F, Carle P, Whitcomb RF, Williamson DL, Tully JG, Bové JM, Claude Chastell C. 1998. Spiroplasma turonicum sp. nov., in Haematopota horse flies (Diptera: Tabanidae) in France. Int J Syst Bacteriol 48:457–461. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 7.Liang T, Li X, Du J, Yao W, Sun G, Dong X, Liu Z, Ou J, Meng Q, Gu W, Wang W. 2011. Identification and isolation of a spiroplasma pathogen from diseased freshwater prawns, Macrobrachium rosenbergii, in China: a new freshwater crustacean host. Aquaculture 318:106. doi: 10.1016/j.aquaculture.2011.03.018. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  • 8.Lorenz B, Schroeder J, Reischl U. 2002. First evidence of an endogenous Spiroplasma sp. infection in humans manifesting as unilateral cataract associated with anterior uveitis in a premature baby. Graefes Arch Clin Exp Ophthalmol 240:348–353. doi: 10.1007/s00417-002-0453-3. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 9.Nunan L, Pantoja C, Salazar M, Aranguren F, Lightner D. 2004. Characterization and molecular methods for detection of a novel spiroplasma pathogenic to Penaeus vannamei. Dis Aquat Organ 62:255–264. doi: 10.3354/dao062255. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 10.Nunan LM, Lightner DV, Oduori MA, Gasparich GE. 2005. Spiroplasma penaei sp. nov., associated with mortalities in Penaeus vannamei, Pacific white shrimp. Int J Syst Evol Microbiol 55:2317–2322. doi: 10.1099/ijs.0.63555-0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 11.Aquilino A, Masiá M, López P, Galiana AJ, Tovar J, Andrés M, Gutiérrez F. 2015. First human systemic infection caused by Spiroplasma. J Clin Microbiol 53:719–721. doi: 10.1128/JCM.02841-14. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 12.Gasparich GE, Whitcomb RF, Dodge D, French FE, Glass J, Williamson DL. 2004. The genus Spiroplasma and its non-helical descendants: phylogenetic classification, correlation with phenotype and roots of the Mycoplasma mycoides clade. Int J Syst Evol Microbiol 54:893–918. doi: 10.1099/ijs.0.02688-0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 13.Besemer J, Lomsadze A, Borodovsky M. 2001. GeneMarkS: a self-training method for prediction of gene starts in microbial genomes. Implications for finding sequence motifs in regulatory regions. Nucleic Acids Res 29:2607–2618. doi: 10.1093/nar/29.12.2607. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 14.Rutherford K, Parkhill J, Crook J, Horsnell T, Rice P, Rajandream M-, Barrell B. 2000. Artemis: sequence visualization and annotation. Bioinformatics 16:944–945. doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/16.10.944. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 15.Lagesen K, Hallin PF, Rødland E, Stærfeldt HH, Rognes T, Ussery DW. 2007. RNammer: consistent annotation of rRNA genes in genomic sequences. Nucleic Acids Res 35:3100–3108. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 16.Gasparich GE. 2010. Spiroplasmas and phytoplasmas: microbes associated with plant hosts. Biologicals 38:193–203. doi: 10.1016/j.biologicals.2009.11.007. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Genome Announcements are provided here courtesy of American Society for Microbiology (ASM)

RESOURCES