RT Journal
A1 Galagan, James E.
A1 Nusbaum, Chad
A1 Roy, Alice
A1 Endrizzi, Matthew G.
A1 Macdonald, Pendexter
A1 FitzHugh, Will
A1 Calvo, Sarah
A1 Engels, Reinhard
A1 Smirnov, Serge
A1 Atnoor, Deven
A1 Brown, Adam
A1 Allen, Nicole
A1 Naylor, Jerome
A1 Stange-Thomann, Nicole
A1 DeArellano, Kurt
A1 Johnson, Robin
A1 Linton, Lauren
A1 McEwan, Paul
A1 McKernan, Kevin
A1 Talamas, Jessica
A1 Tirrell, Andrea
A1 Ye, Wenjuan
A1 Zimmer, Andrew
A1 Barber, Robert D.
A1 Cann, Isaac
A1 Graham, David E.
A1 Grahame, David A.
A1 Guss, Adam M.
A1 Hedderich, Reiner
A1 Ingram-Smith, Cheryl
A1 Kuettner, H. Craig
A1 Krzycki, Joseph A.
A1 Leigh, John A.
A1 Li, Weixi
A1 Liu, Jinfeng
A1 Mukhopadhyay, Biswarup
A1 Reeve, John N.
A1 Smith, Kerry
A1 Springer, Timothy A.
A1 Umayam, Lowell A.
A1 White, Owen
A1 White, Robert H.
A1 de Macario, Everly Conway
A1 Ferry, James G.
A1 Jarrell, Ken F.
A1 Jing, Hua
A1 Macario, Alberto J.L.
A1 Paulsen, Ian
A1 Pritchett, Matthew
A1 Sowers, Kevin R.
A1 Swanson, Ronald V.
A1 Zinder, Steven H.
A1 Lander, Eric
A1 Metcalf, William W.
A1 Birren, Bruce
T1 The Genome of M. acetivorans Reveals Extensive Metabolic and Physiological Diversity
JF Genome Research 
JO Genome Research 
YR 2002 
FD April 01 
VO 12 
IS 4 
SP 532 
OP 542 
DO 10.1101/gr.223902 
UL http://genome.cshlp.org/content/12/4/532.abstract 
AB Methanogenesis, the biological production of methane, plays a pivotal role in the global carbon cycle and contributes significantly to global warming. The majority of methane in nature is derived from acetate. Here we report the complete genome sequence of an acetate-utilizing methanogen, Methanosarcina acetivorans C2A. Methanosarcineae are the most metabolically diverse methanogens, thrive in a broad range of environments, and are unique among the Archaea in forming complex multicellular structures. This diversity is reflected in the genome ofM. acetivorans. At 5,751,492 base pairs it is by far the largest known archaeal genome. The 4524 open reading frames code for a strikingly wide and unanticipated variety of metabolic and cellular capabilities. The presence of novel methyltransferases indicates the likelihood of undiscovered natural energy sources for methanogenesis, whereas the presence of single-subunit carbon monoxide dehydrogenases raises the possibility of nonmethanogenic growth. Although motility has not been observed in any Methanosarcineae, a flagellin gene cluster and two complete chemotaxis gene clusters were identified. The availability of genetic methods, coupled with its physiological and metabolic diversity, makes M. acetivorans a powerful model organism for the study of archaeal biology.[Sequence, data, annotations, and analyses are available athttp://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/. The sequence data described in this paper have been submitted to the GenBank data library under accession no. AE010299.]