Organism

Lactobacillus crispatus is a rod-shaped bacterium found both in the female reproductive tract and the gastrointestinal microbiome (wiki). While some strains are used as probiotics, there is still much to learn about its role in the development of bacterial vaginosis.

Map

A collection of 169 reference genomes were downloaded from the NCBI Genome database on December 17, 2021 as part of a general survey of the normal human microbiota.

Notes

The most notable feature of this group of genomes is the delineation of two primary clades which are distinct both in terms of nucleotide identity and gene content.

In addition, there are a handful of genetic elements which are found distributed horizontally across the species. In the image below we can see an expanded view of a genetic element which is found independently across both of the two major clades. The vast majority of the annotated functions for this group of genes are “hypothetical”, and so the biological impact of this genetic element is difficult to predict.

The two regions which are shown in expanded form immediately above can be found within the full map by zooming in on the regions indicated below (within the interactive map found at the top of this page).