Strain screening and identification
The rhizosphere bacteria were isolated using protocols described previously [Ref]. All strains were inoculated on LB plate and cultured at 30℃ for 18 hours and the colony morphology was observed. Each of the strains were tested for its ability to inhibit the growth of four plant pathogens. Specifically, using the standard culture method [28], we grew cultures of four plant fungal and oomycete pathogens Phytophthora capsica, Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, Colletotrichum gloeosporioides, and Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cucumerinum. To test for their susceptibility to rhizosphere bacteria, a mycelial block of 5 mm diameter was inoculated in the center of a 9 cm diameter PDA plate, and then strain IBFCBF-5 was spotted at a distance of 2.5 cm from the center of the plate. Each treatment was repeated three times. The control plates had no culture of strain IBFCBF-5. The plates were placed upside down in an incubator at 28℃. The diameters of the zone of inhibition were measured, and the bacteria with the largest inhibition zone was selected as the candidate strain for follow-up research [29, 30, 31].
For species identification, the genomic DNA was extracted from each specimen using the TIANquick FFPE DNA Kit (TIANGEN, China). Forward primers B27F (5′-AGAGTTTGATCCTGGCTCAG-3′), and reverse primer U1492R(5′-GGTTACCTTGTTACGACTT-3′) were used to amplify the 16S rRNA gene. Phusion® High-Fidelity PCR Master Mix (New England Biolabs, USA) was used for PCR reaction. Each PCR reaction (25 µL) contains 10×PCR Buffer (2.5 µL, Product name: DBI-2370 ), template DNA (1 µL), dNTPs(2.5 mmol/L, 4µL), MgCl2 (25 mmol/L, 3 µL), primers (1 mmol/L; 1 µL each, Tsingke Biotechnology Co. Ltd.), TaqDNA polymerase (0.5 µL, KOD DNA Polymerase, Number: BTN101002)༌and ddH2O (10.5 µL). PCR conditions were set at 94°C for 5 min, followed by 35 cycles of 94℃ for 30s, 56℃ for 30s, and 72℃ for 1 min, and a final extension of 10 min at 72℃. The amplified products were sequenced by Beijing Kinco Biotechnology Co. Ltd. The sequences were compared with those in GenBank for species identity (Available at: http://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi) [32].
Extraction of High-Quality DNA from Strain IBFCBF-5 for Genome Sequencing
The strain was inoculated in LB liquid medium and cultured aerobically at 30℃ for 15 hours, until the optical density value reached 2.697. The cells were collected by centrifugation at a speed of 6500 r/min for 15 minutes, and the collected bacteria weighed about 5 g. The genomic DNA was extracted using the bacterial DNA kit (E.Z.N.A. Bacterial DNA Kit, Omega Bio-Tek), following the manufacturer’s instructions.
The extracted genomic DNA was sent to Beijing Biomarker Biotechnology Co. Ltd. for sequencing. Sequencing was conducted using both the Illumina Hiseq platform and the PacBio Sequel third-generation single-molecule real-time sequencing system. Low-quality reads were filtered through SMRT 2.3.0 [33].
Genome assembly and sequence analysis of strain IBFCBF-5
The genome of strain IBFCBF-5 was assembled using Canu v1.5 software [34]. The Pilon software [35] was used to correct any mistakes in the assembled genome by using results of Illumina Hiseq sequencing.
For gene prediction, the Repeat Masker software was used to predict and mask the repetitive sequences of the assembled genome [36]. We used the Prodigal software to predict the protein-coding genes [37], tRNAscan-SE to predict the transfer RNA (tRNA) genes, and Infernal 1.1 to predict the ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes and other ncRNAs except for tRNA and rRNA[38, 39]. Using the predicted protein sequences and the protein sequences in the Swiss-Prot database, we compared the homologous gene sequences in the IBFCBF-5 genome by software GenBlastA [40], and then used the software GeneWise [41]to find premature stop codons and frameshift mutations in gene sequences to obtain pseudogenes. Using the predicted genome information, we obtained estimates of repeat sequences, GC content, etc. We used the program Circos to draw the circular genome map [42].
Analysis of Genome Evolution of strain IBFCBF-5
The genome-wide average nucleotide identity (ANI) refers to the overall similarity of homologous genes between two genomes. It is generally believed that the ANI value between strains of the same species needs to reach more than 95% [43]. To further determine the taxonomic status of Bacillus strain IBFCBF-5, the online ANI (https://www.ezbiocloud.net/tools/ani)) was used to analyze the taxonomic status of IBFCBF-5 strains according to its genome sequence. DNA-DNA hybridization (DNA-DAN hybridization, DDH) refers to DNA molecules with complementary base sequences, forming stable double-stranded regions such as hydrogen bonds between base pairs. The DDH value of the IBFCBF-5 strain was analyzed by online DDH (http://ggdc.dsmz.de/ggdc.php) to further determine its taxonomic status.
The relationships among strains were analyzed using their 16S rRNA sequences and by comparing with various reference strains to construct a phylogenetic tree. In addition, the whole-genome sequences of strains CC09, XJ5, 2J01, WF02, YP6, S4, ATCC 14580, CW14, SP1, BS49, and ZJU1 published previously were compared with that of our strain IBFCBF-5 to derive the concatenated SNP profiles. The concatenated SNPs were analyzed using the PhyML (version 3.0) software [44], and the phylogenetic tree was constructed by the ML method (maximum likelihood method).
Functional Annotation of the Genome of strain IBFCBF-5
The predicted gene sequences were compared with available databases including COG [45], KEGG [46], Swiss-Prot [47], TrEMBL [48], Nr [49] and other functional databases. The results of functional gene annotation were obtained. Based on the comparison results of the Nr database, the application software Blast 2 GO [49, 50] annotates the function of the GO database. Furthermore, the software hmmer [51] was used to annotate the Pfam function based on the Pfama [52] database. In addition, we conducted COG and KEGG metabolic pathway enrichment analysis, GO functional enrichment analysis, and other gene function annotation analyses.
Comparative Analysis of CAZyme Database of IBFCBF-5 strains
According to their functions, carbohydrate-active enzymes (carbohydrate active enzymes, CAZyme) mainly include glycoside hydrolase, glycosyltransferase, polysaccharide lyase, carbohydrate esterase, co-oxidoreductase, and carbohydrate-binding modules without catalytic activity. Based on the carbohydrate active enzyme database CAZyme, the functional annotation and analysis of carbohydrate enzyme genes were carried out by using hummer software [52, 53].
Analysis of gene clusters related to secondary metabolites of strain IBFCBF-5
The anti-SMASH software (version5.1.2) was used to analyze and predict the gene clusters related to the synthesis of antagonistic substances in the genome of the IBFCBF-5 strain. According to the preliminary online prediction results, the corresponding genes related to antibacterial substance synthesis were downloaded and compared one by one to determine whether the antagonistic genes in the IBFCBF-5 genome were deleted or mutated.
Statistical analysis
Statistical analysis was performed using Microsoft Excel 2010 (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA, USA) and DPS 7.05 software (Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China). Mean values were compared using Duncan’s multiple range test with P < 0.05 as the level of significance.