Comparative genome analysis of Bacillus licheniformis with Bacillus species

Abstract

Bacillus species have been widely employed in the fermentation industry for the production of various enzymes, antibiotics, proteases and other useful materials. The complete genome sequence of Bacillus licheniformis, an important industrial Bacillus species, has recently been deciphered. We compared the global and local sequence properties with other closely related Bacillus species. B. licheniformis showed high similarities to other three genomes of B. subtilis, B. clausii and B. halodurans in global sequence properties. However, but there were differences in the functional distribution of transporters and the sequence features of famous industrial proteins. Although the comparative analysis of the various genomic properties of the Bacillus species showed that they were highly similar, there were significant differences in small-scale properties. Therefore, the comparative analysis of genome-scale combined with small-scale studies can be utilized to identify new knowledge among the species.