The filamentous fungus Aspergillus niger is the main microorganism used for large scale fermentative production of enzymes within DSM. In order to rationalize the ongoing improvement of production strains and processes, as well as to speed up the identification of potential new enzyme products, DSM recently completed the sequencing and annotation of the A. niger genome. The sequencing project consisted of the 7.5x coverage shotgun sequencing of over 500 carefully selected genomic BAC clones. The 34.5 Mb of unique sequence obtained could be assembled into 19 supercontigs that represent the eight A. niger chromosomes. Genome statistics such as gene density, intron distribution and the presence of transposons will be presented.
Using computer-assisted manual gene modeling and annotation over 14,000 orfs were identified and functionally classified. A strong functional prediction could be made for approx. 45% of the orfs. EC numbers as well as many other functional classifications were assigned to over 3,000 genes. A first inventory of the protein functions identified revealed large numbers of previously unknown enzymes with potential industrial relevance. The availability of the genomic sequence allows a detailed study of the regulatory sequences of these genes.
The functional annotation of genes revealed a detailed blueprint of for example primary metabolism, intracellular transport and protein secretion. The availability of the complete genome allows an in-depth comparison of cellular processes in a variety of physiological conditions and in different strains using modern high throughput techniques such as transcriptomics and proteomics.
The Aspergillus niger genome was sequenced by Gene Alliance. The genome was annotated by Biomax Informatics.
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