The first whole genome sequence in China of a mosquitocidal bacterial, Bacillus sphaericus C3-41, has been completed. Genomic comparison indicated that this bacterium might be related to a kind of marine bacterium. Both of these two bacterial are not able to grow on sugar because of the absence of key enzymes for sugar transfer system and sugar metabolism. This research has been published on Journal of Bacteriology and Applied and Environmental Microbiology.
B. sphaericus is natural mosquito pathogen. It’s peculiarly toxic to culex and anopheles but nontoxic to human beings, animals, birds and aquatic organisms. The strain C3-41 is a highly efficient mosquitocidal bacterium isolated by research group led by Prof. Yuan Zhiming in Wuhan Institute of Virology, CAS. It was the first registered biopesticide for mosquito control in China and has been successfully used national wide more than 20 years. From 1987 to 2006, more than 1500 tons of this pesticide had been produced and applied in 1.5 million acres in more than 100 cities of 13 provinces.
The republish of B. sphaericus C3-41 genome sequence will improve the research of molecular and metabolism regulation research of bacillus species, co-evolution of insect pathogen bacteria and their hosts and construct new mosquitocidal engineering strains.