Escherichia coli O157:H7 Genome sequencing and assembly

Escherichia coli serotype O157:H7 strain B6-914 is a human fecal isolate that was submitted to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and later deposited with the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) as strain ATCC 43888. Its virulence is attenuated due to the lack of stx1, stx2, or stx variants, which resulted in its widespread use in applied microbiology studies for safety reasons. A B6-914 isolate in one USDA culture collection (designated B6-914ARS) has been shown to have unique properties with regard to biofilm formation and persistence on processing surfaces that likely stem from variations in genomic regions that carry bacteriophage insertions. Therefore, it would be valuable to determine the entire genomic sequence of strain B6-914 for use in comparative studies with sequences of deposited serotype O157:H7 strains.