Greedy reduction of Bacillus subtilis genome yields emergent phenotypes
Abstract
We investigate the consequences of genome reduction in Bacillus subtilis, which has many advantages for genome engineering including natural
competence, efficient chromosomal replacement, existing repertoires of non-essential regions and genes, and availability of libraries of parts for
fine-tuning gene circuit expression. As such, B. subtilis is an ideal candidate for the development of a well-characterized minimal chassis in which
complex metabolic and regulatory circuits can be implemented and fine-tuned. First, we applied a greedy genome reduction strategy in which
deletions in large dispensable regions were serially combined starting from the largest. At each step, the fittest clonal population was used for the
next deletion cycle. This strategy generated a synthetic evolutionary tree of 298 strains with reduced genomes, the smallest genome (of 2.73 Mb)
having lost 1.48 Mb in size.
Domains
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