[2] and Sittig and Hirsch [24] the fatty acids were separated into non-hydroxy fatty acids and hydroxy-fatty acids. Main cellular non-hydroxy fatty acids are C18:1 ��11 (48.8%), C16:0 (22.1%), C18:2 ��5,11 (9.5%), C16:1 ��5 (4.6%), and C14:1 ��7 (3.2%). Among the hydroxylated fatty acids IFAM 1418T 3-OH fatty acids with C14:1 3-OH (79%) and C12:0 3-OH (15.8%) predominate, which are useful for the discrimination for H. baltica from strains of Hyphomicrobium and Hyphomonas (Figure 1). Kang and Lee [25] were unable to confirm the presence of these hydoxylated fatty acids in H. baltica. There are two reports [2,24] on the lipid composition of H. baltica and one on the lipids of H. maritima [25]. While all confirm the presence of a single phospholipid, phosphatidylglycerol in members of this genus, it is unclear whether these studies were limited to the detection of only phospholipids. There is evidence that H. baltica contains five major lipids, of which one is phosphatidlyglycerol (BJ Tindall, unpublished). The remaining four lipids are not phosphate positive, but their Rf values and staining behavior indicate similarities to a number of the unusual lipids reported from Hyphomonas jannaschiana [26,27]. Genome sequencing and annotation Genome project history This organism was selected for sequencing as a part of the DOE Joint Genome Institute Program CSP 2008. The genome project is deposited in the Genomes OnLine Database [11] and the complete genome sequence is deposited in GenBank. Sequencing, finishing and annotation were performed by the DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI). A summary of the project information is shown in Table 2. Table 2 Genome sequencing project information Strain history The history of strain IFAM 1418T starts with H. Schlesner who independently deposited the strain in two culture collections, ATCC and DSMZ (in 1989). Growth conditions and DNA isolation The culture of strain IFAM 1418T used to prepare genomic DNA (gDNA) for sequencing was obtained directly from the ATCC. ATCC 49814 was grown in Hirschia medium (ATCC medium 1883) at 30��C with shaking. Genome sequencing and assembly The genome was sequenced using a combination of Illumina and 454 sequencing platforms. All general aspects of library construction and sequencing can be found at the JGI website [28]. Pyrosequencing reads were assembled using the Newbler assembler (Roche). The initial Newbler assembly consisting of nine contigs in two scaffolds was converted into a phrap [29] assembly by making fake reads from the consensus, to collect the read pairs in the 454 paired end library. Illumina GAii sequencing data (50 Mb) were assembled with Velvet [30] and the consensus sequences were shredded into 1.5 kb overlapped fake reads and assembled together with the 454 data. The 454 draft assembly was based on 128.0 Mb 454 draft data and all of the 454 paired end data. Newbler parameters were -consed -a 50 – l350 -g -m -ml 20.