Bacillus pangenome and the answers hidden within

Abstract

Objectives: We've been taught since we're young that bacteria are everywhere but are they really everywhere? To address this question, we created Bacillus pangenomes. Analysis of the pangenomes allowed us to answer questions such as whether biogeography affected the pangenome and its structure. Material & Methods: In this study, we relied heavily on high performance computing to generate the necessary data. Genomes were retrieved from NCIB and pangenomes were created with the micropan package for R, a software for statistical computing on Oklahoma State University's "Pete" compute cluster. Micropan and FigTree were used to create the blast distance and 16s rRNA phylogenetic trees, respectively. The calculated genomic differenced allowed us to compare how the 16s rRNA tree differed from the full genome tree. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) plots were also constructed to show the relationship between species in different environments and regions. Results: Our data indicated the pangenome size to differ based on environment and region. Heaps analysis showed the pangenomes to be open with an alpha value much lower than one independent from the number of genomes included in the pangenome. Conclusion: There is still much work that needed to be done but our preliminary results suggest that species within a genus tend to cluster together regardless of external factors and that the Bacillus has an open pangenome.