Microbially induced carbonate precipitation (MICP), a widespread process among microorganisms, has been widely exploited in biotechnology, with applications in the remediation of metal contaminated soil and groundwater [1,2], long-term atmospheric CO₂ sequestration [1], the strengthening and consolidation of soil and sand [3], the reduction of the porosity of geological formations [4], the protection and repair of concrete and cement structures [5], and the conservation of monumental calcareous stones [6]. This kind of carbonate precipitation is often associated with pathway of the nitrogen cycle, especially ammonification of amino acids, nitrate reduction and urea degradation [7]. However, the exact role of bacteria in this process remains unclear. Actinobacterium Brevibacterium linens BS258 is a urease positive strain isolated from marine sediment of China Yellow Sea. Our previous study demonstrated that B. linens BS258 had strong capability of calcite precipitation, and could effectively remove heavy metal ions such as manganese and strontium. The genome sequence of B. linens BS258 will provide further understanding about the potential biotechnological applications

In order to understand properties of B. linens BS258 and exploit its potentials, the whole genome was sequenced by PacBio single molecule real time sequencing technology with a 10 kb SMRTbell library. A total of 92,575 long reads (1,330,998,188 bp) were obtained where the N50 Read Length was 20,542 bp. Reads were assembled using SMRT Analysis 2.3.0. Coding genes were annotated by Prokaryotic Genome Annotation Pipeline (PGAP) version 2.10 software on NCBI (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/annotation_prok/) and Rapid Annotation using Sub-system Technology (RAST: http://rast.nmpdr. org/) server [8]. Additional functional annotation was performed with 5 databases, they are KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes) [9], COG (Cluster of Orthologous Groups) [10], NR (Nonredundant Protein Database), GO (Gene Ontology) [11] and Swiss- Prot [12]. The tRNA genes and rRNA genes were annotated with tRNAscan-SE v1.23 [13] and rRNAmmer 1.2 [14], respectively.

The genome of B. linens BS258 consists of one circular chromosome of 3,862,244 bp with a 64.16% G+C content. The genome contained 3437 genes with the total length of 3,452,700 bp, which makes up 89.4% of genome. 47 tRNA genes and 12 rRNA genes were detected (Table 1). Total of 1921 genes were classified into 20 Clusters of Orthologous Groups (COG) categories, and 137 genes were identified to be related with inorganic ion transport and metabolism. Additionally, 6 genes were found to be involved in urea catabolic process, and 3 genes involved in CO₂ fixation. The information of these genes was probably associated with precipitation of various metal irons and CO₂ fixation in the meanwhile, which will be helpful for environmental remediation, wastewater treatment and atmospheric CO₂ sequestration. The genome sequence of B. linens BS258 enables further studies in accessing its biotechnological characteristics.

Table 1: General genome features of Brevibacterium linens BS258.

Nucleotide Sequence Accession Number

The complete genome sequence of B. linens BS258 was deposited in GenBank with the accession number CP014869.

This work was supported by the Scientific and Technological Innovation Project of Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (2015ASKJ02), AoShan Talents Program supported by Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (2015ASTP) and “100-Talent Project” of Chinese Academy of Sciences for Chaomin Sun.