Genome sequence of the Thermotoga thermarum type strain (LA3T) from an African solfataric spring

Thermotoga thermarum Windberger et al. 1989 is a member to the genomically well charac-terized genus Thermotoga in the phylum 'Thermotogae'. T. thermarum is of interest for its origin from a continental solfataric spring vs. predominantly marine oil reservoirs of other members of the genus. The genome of strain LA3T also provides fresh data for the phylogenomic positioning of the (hyper-)thermophilic bacteria. T. thermarum strain LA3T is the fourth sequenced genome of a type strain from the genus Thermotoga, and the sixth in the family Thermotogaceae to be formally described in a publication. Phylogenetic analyses do not reveal significant discrepancies between the current classification of the group, 16S rRNA gene data and whole-genome sequences. Nevertheless, T. thermarum significantly dif-fers from other Thermotoga species regarding its iron-sulfur cluster synthesis, as it contains only a minimal set of the necessary proteins. Here we describe the features of this organism, together with the complete genome sequence and annotation. The 2,039,943 bp long chro-mosome with its 2,015 protein-coding and 51 RNA genes is a part of the Genomic Encyclo-pedia of Bacteria and Archaea project.