Isolation, Sequence Analysis, and Comparison of Two Plasmids (28 and 29 Kilobases) from the Biomining Bacterium Leptospirillum ferrooxidans ATCC 49879

Two plasmids, of 28,878 bp and 28,012 bp, were isolated from Leptospirillum ferrooxidans ATCC 49879. Altogether, a total of 67 open reading frames (ORFs) were identified on both plasmids, of which 32 had predicted products with high homology to proteins of known function, while 11 ORFs had predicted products with homology to previously identified proteins of unknown function. Twenty-four ORFs had products with no homologues in the GenBank/NCBI database. An analysis of the ORFs and other features of the two plasmids, the first to be isolated from a bacterium of the genus Leptospirillum, is presented.