Insights from the revised complete genome sequences of Acinetobacter baumannii strains AB307-0294 and ACICU belonging to global clones 1 and 2.

The Acinetobacter baumannii global clone 1 isolate AB307-0294, recovered in the USA in 1994, and the global clone 2 (GC2) isolate ACICU, isolated in 2005 in Italy, were among the first A. baumannii isolates to be completely sequenced. AB307-0294 is susceptible to most antibiotics and has been used in many genetic studies, and ACICU belongs to a rare GC2 lineage. The complete genome sequences, originally determined using 454 pyrosequencing technology, which is known to generate sequencing errors, were re-determined using Illumina MiSeq and MinION (Oxford Nanopore Technologies) technologies and a hybrid assembly generated using Unicycler. Comparison of the resulting new high-quality genomes to the earlier 454-sequenced versions identified a large number of nucleotide differences affecting protein coding sequence (CDS) features, and allowed the sequences of the long and highly repetitive bap and blp1 genes to be properly resolved for the first time in ACICU. Comparisons of the annotations of the original and revised genomes revealed a large number of differences in the protein CDS features, underlining the impact of sequence errors on protein sequence predictions and core gene determination. On average, 400 predicted CDSs were longer or shorter in the revised genomes and about 200 CDS features were no longer present.