Genome sequencing has provided us with powerful insights into the genetic make-up of the microbial world and has lead to a huge number of revolutionary technologies such as microarrays and proteomics that have transformed the field of microbiological research.
The first complete genome to ever be sequenced was was that of Haemophilus influenzae. It was published in 1995, sequenced at the Institute for Genomic Research founded by Craig Ventor. (5) This was the first DNA of a free-living organism to be completely decoded, and the data from this project laid out for the first time, the full genetic complement of a bacterial organism. Following this accomplishment, numerous other bacteria were sequenced within 5 years of that publication, including Mycobacterium tuberculosis (1998), Escherichia coli (1997), and Archaeoglobus fulgidus (1997). Since then, eukaryotic microbes have been sequenced, such as Plasmodium falciparum (2002) and yeast (1997). These sequences have led to the massive expansion of sequence data available today. (66) |  Haemophilus Influenzae Figure (77) |
