Extensive Molecular Characterization of a New Bacterial Cellulose Hydrogel (BCH) Producing Gluconacetobacter Isolate from Nigeria Sourced Agro-Residue

Bacterial cellulose hydrogels (BCH) are characterized as exopolysaccharides of glucose polymer consisting of β-1-4– glycosidic linkage with various degrees of polymerizations, which are biosynthesized by bacteria. Information on the molecular characterization of a Nigeria BCH producer isolate is completely unavailable. The study therefore aimed to characterize a new Acetobacter species that had previously been confirmed to produce BCH. The BCH-producing isolate was characterized by PCR amplification of its 16S rRNA gene, followed by sequencing and construction of phylogenetic tree. The whole-genome sequence of the isolate was also determined using the NGS Illumina sequencing, with downstream analysis of metagenomic reads through the metaWRAP pipeline. The BCH producer isolate was identified to be Acetobacter orientalis strain Zaria-B1, based on sequence identity with the reference Acetobacter orientalis strain VVS. Based on its annotated genome, the isolate was found to have an approximate genomic size of 3.1 Mbp, 45 total number of RNAs, GC content of 52.5%, 3,046 total number of protein-encoding genes, N50 of 253,774 bp, L50 of 4, as well as 30 number of contigs. Nucleotide BLAST of the cellulose synthase gene sequence confirmed the bin to be Acetobacter orientalis. The whole-genome characterization alongside the 16S rRNA genotyping confirmed the BCH-producing isolate to be Acetobacter orientalis.