NEW YORK, Jan. 4 (GenomeWeb News) - A group led by researchers from The Institute for Genomic Research sequenced a strain of the bacterium Campylobacter jejuni, and nearly completed the sequences of three additional strains, TIGR said yesterday.
In an article published in the January 2005 issue of PLoS Biology, researchers published the new sequences and compared them with that of a laboratory strain of C. jejuni sequenced in 2000. The comparative studies provided insight into why some strains of Campylobacter are more virulent than others, TIGR said.
According to a TIGR spokesperson, the group has fully sequenced to closure the RM1221 strain of C. jejuni, which was isolated from chicken skin and is known to efficiently colonize chicken digestive tracts.
The group has also sequenced to 8x coverage or higher the genomes of a multidrug-resistant strain of C. coli isolated from a chicken; a C. lari strain associated with human illness; and a C. upsaliensis strain isolated from a child with Guillain-Barre syndrome, TIGR said.