The Complete Genome Sequence of Escherichia coli K-12

• Published in: Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 277; no. 5331; pp. 1453 - 1469
• Main Authors: Blattner, Frederick R., Plunkett, Guy, Bloch, Craig A., Perna, Nicole T., Burland, Valerie, Riley, Monica, Collado-Vides, Julio, Glasner, Jeremy D., Rode, Christopher K., Mayhew, George F., Gregor, Jason, Davis, Nelson Wayne, Kirkpatrick, Heather A., Goeden, Michael A., Rose, Debra J., Mau, Bob, Shao, Ying
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Society for the Advancement of Science 05-09-1997; American Association for the Advancement of Science; The American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Subjects: Bacteria; Bacterial Proteins - chemistry; Bacterial Proteins - genetics; Bacterial Proteins - metabolism; Bacteriology; Bacteriophage lambda - genetics; Bacteriophages; Base Composition; Binding Sites; Biological and medical sciences; Chromosome Mapping; Coding; Codons; Deoxyribonucleic acid; DNA; DNA Replication; DNA Transposable Elements; DNA, Bacterial - genetics; Elementary Secondary Education; Escherichia coli; Escherichia coli - genetics; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Genes; Genes, Bacterial; Genetics; Genome, Bacterial; Genomes; Global Approach; Microbiology; Molecular Biology; Molecular Sequence Data; Mutation; Open reading frames; Operator regions; Operon; Operons; Organic Chemistry; Prophages; Proteins; Recombination, Genetic; Regulatory Sequences, Nucleic Acid; Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid; RNA, Bacterial - genetics; RNA, Transfer - genetics; Sequence Analysis, DNA; Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; Sequencing; Proteins; Molecular evolution; Genome organization; Cell function; Gene; Nucleotide sequence; Escherichia coli; Bacteria; Chromosome DNA; Homology; Enterobacteriaceae
• ISSN: 0036-8075; 1095-9203
• DOI: 10.1126/science.277.5331.1453

The 4,639,221-base pair sequence of Escherichia coli K-12 is presented. Of 4288 protein-coding genes annotated, 38 percent have no attributed function. Comparison with five other sequenced microbes reveals ubiquitous as well as narrowly distributed gene families; many families of similar genes within E. coli are also evident. The largest family of paralogous proteins contains 80 ABC transporters. The genome as a whole is strikingly organized with respect to the local direction of replication; guanines, oligonucleotides possibly related to replication and recombination, and most genes are so oriented. The genome also contains insertion sequence (IS) elements, phage remnants, and many other patches of unusual composition indicating genome plasticity through horizontal transfer.