Once the library quality
was confirmed, the libraries were sequenced on an Illumina GAII sequencer according to Illumina’s standard protocol. The Illumina output for each resequencing run was learn more first curated to remove any sequences containing a ‘.’, which denotes an undetermined nucleotide. We then used mosaikaligner (http://bioinformatics.bc.edu/marthlab/Mosaik) to iteratively align reads to the G. sulfurreducens (AE017180.1) reference sequence, where, in each iteration, a limit was placed on the number of alignment mismatches allowed. This limit iteratively increased from 0 to 5, and unaligned reads were used as input to the next iteration that had a more lenient mismatch limit. An in-house script (available see more upon request) was then used to compile the read alignments into a nucleotide-resolution
alignment profile. Consistency and coverage were then assessed to identify likely polymorphic locations. The locations at which coverage was >10 × and for which indels were observed or the count of an SNP was greater than twice the count of the reference-sequence-matching nucleotide were considered to be likely polymorphic locations. Each of these potential mutations was also identified in multiple (4–48) strain resequencing experiments in our database. Potential mutations that were identified in multiple strains were assumed to be false positives; this assumption was borne out by the results of follow-up
Sanger sequencing of over 25% of the possible mutations. A previous study (Reguera et al., 2005) indicated that the deletion of the gene for the type IV pilin protein Thiamine-diphosphate kinase PilA prevented filament production in the DL-1 genome strain of G. sulfurreducens. However, an additional study of this strain revealed that filaments with a length and a diameter similar to the type IV pili could be occasionally observed in a very small proportion of cells in this strain (Fig. 1a, b); most grids contained cells with no filaments. We speculate that the scarcity of filamented cells is what precluded their detection until now. In order to further evaluate whether G. sulfurreducens might produce pilin-like filaments from proteins other than PilA, studies were conducted with the MA strain of G. sulfurreducens, which routinely produces more abundant filaments than strain DL-1 and thus provided a more convenient study system. Resequencing of the MA strain with Illumina sequencing technology failed to reveal any mutations, indicating that this strain did not differ from the wild-type DL-1 strain at the genomic level. When pilA in strain MA was deleted, the PilA protein could no longer be detected (Fig. S1), but the pilA-deficient strain produced abundant filaments (Fig. 1d) that were morphologically indistinguishable from those produced by the wild-type strain MA (Fig. 1c).