Bacterial Genomes and Their Evolution

Dear Colleagues,

It is less than two decades since the first bacterial genome was sequenced, but now there are more than a thousand complete bacterial genome sequences available, with substantial but incomplete information on many more. Not only individual isolates, but uncultured organisms and whole bacterial communities can be sequenced. In recent years, the pace of data acquisition has quickened greatly with the development of higher-throughput sequencing. The completion of one more bacterial genome is no longer a major event, but the accumulation of information from such a large number of organisms provides many opportunities to explore general patterns and to identify special cases.

This Special Issue provides an Open Access forum to bring together a range of contributions to our understanding of bacterial genomes. These may include the presentation of new genomic data, comparative analyses based on published sequences, new insights and hypotheses, and reviews of relevant topics. We hope to provide an interesting cross-section of current work, and welcome significant contributions of all kinds.

Prof. Dr. J. Peter W. Young
Guest Editor