Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Current Microbiology https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-019-01737-1 Comparative Analysis of Draft Genome Sequence of Rhodococcus sp. Eu‑32 with Other Rhodococcus Species for Its Taxonomic Status and Sulfur Metabolism Potential Nasrin Akhtar 1  · Muhammad A. Ghauri 1  · Kalsoom Akhtar 1  · Sana Parveen 1  · Muhammad Farooq 2  · Aamir Ali 3  · Peter Schierack 4 Received: 23 January 2019 / Accepted: 3 July 2019 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019 Abstract Rhodococcus sp. Eu-32 has shown an extended novel dibenzothiophene desulfurization sulfur-specifc 4S pathway and could remove signifcant amounts of organic sulfur from coal. Here, we present the draft genome sequence of Eu-32 with a genome size of approximately 5.61 Mb, containing 5065 protein coding sequences with a G+C content of 65.1%. The Rhodococcus sp. Eu-32 showed ~ 99% identity at the 16S rRNA gene sequence level while < 34% digital DNA–DNA hybridization and < 81% average nucleotide identity values with the genome sequence of most closely related known Rhodococcus species, suggesting that it is taxonomically diferent from the already reported Rhodococcus species. Among the annotated genes, 90 are involved in the metabolism of sulfur. Comparative genome analysis suggests many commonalities in sulfur metabolism gene sets that may have evolved due to many factors including ecological pressures. Our study and the genome sequence data will be available for further research and will provide insights into potential biotechnological and industrial applica- tions of this bacterium. Introduction Sulfur oxide (SO x ) emission from the burning of the sul- fur loaded fossil fuels causes serious health (bronchial irri- tation and asthma), environmental (acidic rains), as well as technical problems (corrosion of the machinery) [15, 17]. The process of hydrodesulfurization (HDS) is being used to remove sulfur; however, HDS demands severe operational conditions and cannot remove sulfur from thiophenic com- pounds such as dibenzothiophene (DBT), benzothiophene (BT), and their alkylated forms [8, 18, 20]. Biodesulfuri- zation (BDS) is thought to be an alternative complemen- tary technique for the refning of petroleum, as it operates at milder conditions, removes sulfur in a selective manner, and is environment friendly [5, 25]. The three main com- ponents of any generalized industrial microbial process are microorganisms, substrate, and product. In such processes, microorganisms or their enzymes play a remarkable role as biocatalysts. For an efcient process, the microorganisms should be fast growing, non-pathogenic/eco-friendly, and have high substrate range specifcity and conversion ef- ciency. However, the process of biological removal of sulfur has been limited by some important challenges like low spe- cifc activity/conversion rate, narrow substrate range, labori- ous task of handling various growth controlling parameters, and inhibition of desulfurization biocatalysts/enzymes by accumulation of end product (s) e.g., 2-hydroxybiphenyl [1, 13, 16]. For laboratory and industrial scale applications of the biodesulfurization process, an improved understanding Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-019-01737-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Nasrin Akhtar nasrin_379@yahoo.com; nasrin@nibge.org * Muhammad A. Ghauri maghauri@nibge.org; ghauri1961@gmail.com 1 Industrial Biotechnology Division, National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, P. O. Box 577, Jhang Road, Faisalabad, Pakistan 2 Agricultural Biotechnology Division, National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, P. O. Box 577, Jhang Road, Faisalabad, Pakistan 3 Health Biotechnology Division, National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, P. O. Box 577, Jhang Road, Faisalabad, Pakistan 4 Institute for Biotechnology, Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg, Senftenberg, Germany