Comparative Genomics of Rhodobacter capsulatus Strains after Long-Term Maintenance in Different Microbial Culture Collections

The genomes from three independent lines of the purple non-sulfur bacterium Rhodobacter capsulatus were compared. These lines originated from a single parental strain, B10, but have been maintained separately in the culture collections of different research groups for over 40 years. One of the genomes was sequenced and assembled de novo as part of this work. Application of a set of bioinformatic methods revealed that the lines differed from each other in their genome size, number of plasmids, plasmid or chromosomal localization of the genes, and the number of coding regions, which were determined by the RAST 2.0 algorithm.