First Insights into the Completely Annotated Genome Sequence of Bacillus licheniformis Strain 9945A

Strains of the species Bacillus licheniformis are widely used in biotechnology for the production of enzymes and antibiotics (M. Schallmey, A. Singh, and O. P. Ward, Can. J. Microbiol. 50:1–17, 2004). However, research and application of B. licheniformis strains are adversely affected by poor genetic accessibility. Thus, for a closer inspection of natural competence in B. licheniformis, the genome of strain 9945A, of which derivatives are known to be naturally competent (C. B. Thorne and H. B. Stull, J. Bacteriol. 91:1012–1020, 1966), was completely sequenced and manually annotated.