high confidence prediction of essential genes in burkholderia cenocepacia高信心的预测基因在洋葱cenocepacia至关重要.pdfVIP

High Confidence Prediction of Essential Genes in Burkholderia Cenocepacia 1 2 2 3 4 Mario Juhas *, Manuel Stark , Christian von Mering , Puthapoom Lumjiaktase , Derrick W. Crook , 5 1 Miguel A. Valvano , Leo Eberl * 1 Department of Microbiology, Institute of Plant Biology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, 2 Institute of Molecular Life Sciences and Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, 3 Mahidol University, Salaya, Nakhon Pathom, Thailand, 4 Nuffield Department of Clinical Laboratory Sciences, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, 5 Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada Abstract Background: Essential genes are absolutely required for the survival of an organism. The identification of essential genes, besides being one of the most fundamental questions in biology, is also of interest for the emerging science of synthetic biology and for the development of novel antimicrobials. New antimicrobial therapies are desperately needed to treat multidrug-resistant pathogens, such as members of the Burkholderia cepacia complex. Methodology/Principal Findings: We hypothesize that essential genes may be highly conserved within a group of evolutionary closely related organisms. Using a bioinformatics approach we determined that the core genome of the order Burkholderiales consists of 649 genes. All but two of these identified genes were located on chromosome 1 of Burkholderia cenocepacia. Although many of the 649 core genes of Burkholderiales have been shown to be essential in other bacteria, we were also able to