Complete Genome Sequence of Biofilm-Forming Strain Staphylococcus haemolyticus S167

Abstract

Staphylococcus haemolyticus S167 has the ability to produce biofilms in large quantities. Genomic analyses revealed information on the biofilm-related genes of S. haemolyticus S167. Detailed studies of biofilm formation at the molecular level could provide a foundation for biofilm control research.

GENOME ANNOUNCEMENT

Staphylococcus haemolyticus is the second-most frequently isolated species in human blood cultures among coagulase-negative staphylococci. S. haemolyticus plays an important role in nosocomial infections related to implanted medical devices, such as catheters and mechanical heart valves (1). Most urinary tract and bloodstream infections are related to indwelling medical devices, which provide suitable surfaces for biofilm formation (2). Biofilms are cooperating microbial communities attached to a surface through an extracellular polymeric matrix. Biofilms impose heavy burdens on public health (3). To investigate biofilm control strategies, complete genomic sequencing of S. haemolyticus S167, a strong biofilm producer, was performed.

Genome sequencing was performed using a combination of the Illumina MiSeq platform and the Pacific Biosciences (PacBio) single-molecule real-time (SMRT) sequencing platform at ChunLab (Seoul, Republic of Korea). The sequencing reads were assembled using the CLC Genomics Workbench 7.5.1 and the PacBio SMRT Analysis 2.3.0 software. Annotation of the whole-genome sequence was performed with the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Prokaryotic Genome Automatic Annotation Pipeline (PGAP).

The complete genome of S. haemolyticus S167 consists of one chromosome with 2,549,338 bp (G+C content, 32.85%) and one circular plasmid with 10,808 bp (G+C content, 28.77%). The entire genome contains 2,456 protein-coding sequences (CDS), 19 rRNA genes, and 59 tRNA genes.

Genome analysis revealed that there was no ica operon, which has been reported to play an important role in biofilm formation in Staphylococcus species. Several ica-independent mechanisms for biofilm formation, as well as related genes, such as bap, sarA, agr, fnbps, aap, dlt, arlRS, and atl, have been reported (4). The global regulators agr and sarA, two-component gene system arlRS, and the major autolysin gene atl were found in the sequence of S. haemolyticus S167. These genome analysis results provide a basis for ica-independent biofilm mechanism studies. A deeper understanding of biofilm formation mechanisms could provide improvement for biofilm control strategies and lead to lower medical costs.

Nucleotide sequence accession numbers.

The complete genome sequences of the chromosome and plasmid have been deposited in the GenBank under accession numbers CP013911 and CP013912, respectively.