Complete Genome Sequence of a Type Strain of Mycobacterium abscessus subsp. bolletii, a Member of the Mycobacterium abscessus Complex

ABSTRACT Mycobacterium abscessus subsp. bolletii is a rapidly growing mycobacterial organism for which the taxonomy is unclear. Here, we report the complete genome sequence of a Mycobacterium abscessus subsp. bolletii type strain. This sequence will provide essential information for future taxonomic and comparative genome studies of these mycobacteria.

T he number of cases of nontuberculosis mycobacteria (NTM) is increasing, especially in developed countries. In our hospital-based survey of pulmonary NTM disease patients in Japan, the number of pulmonary Mycobacterium abscessus disease cases increased 5-fold relative to a survey conducted 7 years earlier (1). Moreover, the finding that the multidrug-resistant M. abscessus complex (MABC) is transmissible between patients with conditions such as cystic fibrosis provided a radical shift in thinking about MABC acquisition, which was previously thought to be environmental (2)(3)(4). Despite advances made in the genomics and documentation of clinical phenotypical differences among MABCs, discrepancies in conventional DNA-DNA hybridization (DDH) results led to debate about MABC taxonomic differentiation (3,(5)(6)(7)(8)(9).
The length of the M. abscessus subsp. bolletii BD T genome is 5,080,450 bp (64.1% GϩC content). Mycobacterium-related ANI was 96.95% to M. abscessus subsp. abscessus (complete genome of strain ATCC_19977 T [20]) and 96.73% to M. abscessus subsp. massiliense (complete genome of strain JCM_15300 T [7]). GGD-estimated DDH values between strains BD T and ATCC_19977 T , strains ATCC_19977 T and JCM_15300, and strains JCM_15300 and BD T were 87.0%, 86.0%, and 88.1%, respectively. The GS-DD was 23 for these 3 comparisons. These values support the proposed taxonomic position of M. abscessus subsp. bolletii (3). The number of predicted proteincoding sequences in the genome (n ϭ 4,976) is nearly equivalent to those of M. abscessus subsp. abscessus (n ϭ 4,920) and M. abscessus subsp. massiliense (n ϭ 4,857) (7,20). The numbers of rRNA operons (n ϭ 3) and tRNA genes (n ϭ 49) are similar or equivalent to those of close relatives. Although a draft genome sequence for Mycobacterium abscessus subsp. bolletii BD T was previously determined (21), the number of predicted genes differed significantly from that obtained here. We also identified a 97.1-kb prophage that was longer than that seen in a previous study (63 kb) (21). The complete genome sequence of M. abscessus subsp. bolletii BD T represents essential data for future taxonomic and comparative genome studies.
Accession number(s). The chromosome sequence was deposited in DDBJ/ENA/ GenBank under accession no. AP018436.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by a grant from the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development/Japan International Cooperation Agency to Y. Hoshino and by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) to Y. Hoshino.
The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.