The Popular Bacteria

Nick Loman at Pathogens: Genes and Genomes compiled a list of the 50 most sequenced bacteria using NCBI's databases of complete and incomplete genome projects. Topping his list is, no surprise, Escherichia coli, followed by Staphylococcus aureus and Helicobacter pylori. At his own blog, Mike the Mad Biologist adds that the number of genomes sequenced will likely increase quickly. "E. coli will probably triple, S. aureus and Enterococcus will explode many-fold, B. cereus will triple. And this could very well be a large underestimate on my part," Mike writes, adding, "Of course, this then leads to the question of how one goes about analyzing hundreds of genomes."