Draft Genome Sequence of the Purple Photosynthetic Bacterium Phaeospirillum molischianum DSM120, a Particularly Versatile Bacterium

Here we present the draft genome sequence of the versatile and adaptable purple photosynthetic bacterium Phaeospirillum molischianumDSM120. This study advances the understanding of the adaptability of this bacterium, as well as the differences between the Phaeospirillum and Rhodospirillum genera. The alphaproteobacterium Phaeospirillum molischianum, pre-viously named Rhodospirillum molischianum (3), is a photo-synthetic bacterium which has been extensively studied for its photosynthetic apparatus (1, 2, 4, 6), in particular since it is rela-tively easy to cultivate and grows rapidly to high cell density. This easy cultivation and widespread occurrence suggest efficient ad-aptation to the environment, as is indeed evidenced by its capacity for chromatic adaptation. This led us to suspect an extensive col-lection of environmental sensors. Whole-genome shotgun sequencing of P.molischianum was performed by COGENICS (San Francisco, CA) using two runs of 454 technology, producing 590,359 reads (92.2 Mb of raw sequences representing a coverage of 24-fold). Assembl