Draft Genome Sequence of Bacillus cereus Strain F, Isolated from Ancient Permafrost Evgeniy V. Brenner,a Anatoli V. Brouchkov,b,c Alexander M. Kurilshikov,a Gennady I. Griva,c Elena Kashuba,d Vladimir I. Kashuba,d O. Melefors,d Vladimir E. Repin,a Vladimir P. Melnikov,b,c Valentin V. Vlassova Institute of Chemical Biology and Fundamental Medicine, SB RAS, Novosibirsk, Russiaa; Moscow State University, Moscow, Russiab; Institute of the Earth Cryosphere SB RAS, Tyumen, Russiac; Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Swedend Bacillus cereus strain F was isolated and cultured from a sample of permafrost, aged presumably about 3 million years, on the Mammoth Mountain (62°56=N, 133°59=E). These genome data provide the basis to investigate Bacillus cereus F, identified as a long-term survivor of the extremely cold and close environment. Received 23 June 2013 Accepted 24 June 2013 Published 1 August 2013 Citation Brenner EV, Brouchkov AV, Kurilshikov AM, Griva GI, Kashuba E, Kashuba VI, Melefors O, Repin VE, Melnikov VP, Vlassov VV. 2013. Draft genome sequence of Bacillus cereus strain F, isolated from ancient permafrost. Genome Announc. 1(4):e00561-13. doi:10.1128/genomeA.00561-13. Copyright © 2013 Brenner et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. Address correspondence to Evgeniy V. Brenner, brenner@niboch.nsc.ru. P ermafrost covers nearly 65% of Russia’s territory and contains microorganisms which have remained viable over millions of years. Although DNA sequences from 106 years have been re- Believed to be as ancient as the permafrost sample from which this strain was isolated, Bacillus cereus F exhibits a surprisingly high level of homology with modern Bacillus cereus strains, par- ported (1, 2), the results are still limited. The preservation of DNA ticularly with Bacillus cereus strain ATCC 10987. The difference in has great significance in studies of evolution, and the extremely chromosomal nucleotide sequences between these two strains cold environments are also being studied as analogues of extrater- does not exceed 1.5%, which is comparable to or even less than the restrial habitats. A viable strain “F” of Bacillus cereus was isolated difference between available chromosomal sequences of other Ba- from a sample of permafrost aged presumably about 3 mil- cillus cereus strains. These observations may reflect the adaptabil- lion years on the Mammoth Mountain, Central Yakutia, located ity of Bacillus cereus for long-term survival and the evolution strat- on the left bank of the Aldan river (62°56=N, 133°59=E), 325 km egies of this organism in the permafrost environment (4–6). upstream from the mouth of the River Lena (3). This strain is Nucleotide sequence accession numbers. This whole-genome being cultivated on Luria broth (LB) medium under standard shotgun project has been deposited at DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank un- conditions. Although Bacillus cereus is capable of forming spores, der the accession number AHHI00000000. The version described it still seems astonishing that bacteria trapped in frozen soil can here is the first version, AHHI01000000. survive soil radiation and other damaging agents at temperatures of nearly –3°C and under the conditions of a closed environment ACKNOWLEDGMENTS and almost total deprivation of energy sources. Due to its remark- This work was supported by the RAS program “Molecular and cellular able survival capabilities, Bacillus cereus F can be considered a biology,” scientific school number 2972.2012.4, and the Siberian Branch potential model organism for the study of low-temperature adap- of the Russian Academy of Sciences tations. Here we report the first draft sequence of the Bacillus cereus F REFERENCES genome. 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