The complete genome of the crenarchaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus P2

^aMicrobial Genome Group, Institute of Molecular Biology, University of Copenhagen, Sølvgade 83H, DK-1307 Copenhagen, Denmark; ^cNational Research Council of Canada, Institute for Marine Biosciences, 1411 Oxford Street, Halifax, NS, Canada B3H 3Z1; ^dUniversité Paris-Sud, Institut de Génétique et Microbiologie, 15, Rue Georges Clemenceau, Bâtiment 400, FR-91405 Orsay Cedex, France; ^eUniversity of Ottawa, Department of Biology, 30 Marie Curie, Ottawa, ON, Canada K1N 6N5; ^fNovozymes, Novo Alle, DK-2880 Bagsværd, Denmark; ^gWageningen University, Laboratory of Microbiology, Hesselink van Suchtelenweg 4, NL-6703 CT, Wageningen, The Netherlands; ^hDalhousie University, Department of Biochemistry, Sir Charles Tupper Medical Building, Halifax, NS, Canada B3H 4H7; ⁱThe Rockefeller University, 1230 York Avenue, New York, NY 10021; and ^kInstitute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia

Communicated by Carl R. Woese, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Urbana, IL (received for review February 15, 2001)

Abstract

The genome of the crenarchaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus P2 contains 2,992,245 bp on a single chromosome and encodes 2,977 proteins and many RNAs. One-third of the encoded proteins have no detectable homologs in other sequenced genomes. Moreover, 40% appear to be archaeal-specific, and only 12% and 2.3% are shared exclusively with bacteria and eukarya, respectively. The genome shows a high level of plasticity with 200 diverse insertion sequence elements, many putative nonautonomous mobile elements, and evidence of integrase-mediated insertion events. There are also long clusters of regularly spaced tandem repeats. Different transfer systems are used for the uptake of inorganic and organic solutes, and a wealth of intracellular and extracellular proteases, sugar, and sulfur metabolizing enzymes are encoded, as well as enzymes of the central metabolic pathways and motility proteins. The major metabolic electron carrier is not NADH as in bacteria and eukarya but probably ferredoxin. The essential components required for DNA replication, DNA repair and recombination, the cell cycle, transcriptional initiation and translation, but not DNA folding, show a strong eukaryal character with many archaeal-specific features. The results illustrate major differences between crenarchaea and euryarchaea, especially for their DNA replication mechanism and cell cycle processes and their translational apparatus.

Footnotes

↵ b Q.S., R.K.S., F.C., and Y.Z. contributed equally to this work.
↵ j To whom reprint requests should be addressed. E-mail: garrett{at}mermaid.molbio.ku.dk.
↵ l Present address: University of Calgary, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 3330 Hospital Drive N.W., Calgary, AB, Canada T2N 4N1.
Data deposition: The sequence reported in this paper has been deposited in the European Molecular Biology Laboratory/GenBank database (accession no. AE006641).
Abbreviations:

IS element,

insertion sequence element;

LCTR,

large clusters of 20-nt tandem repeat sequences