Abstract
Methanoplanus limicola Wildgruber et al. 1984 is a mesophilic methanogen that was isolated from a swamp composed of drilling waste near Naples, Italy, shortly after the Archaea were recognized as a separate domain of life. Methanoplanus is the type genus in the family Methanoplanaceae, a taxon that felt into disuse since modern 16S rRNA gene sequences-based taxonomy was established. Methanoplanus is now placed within the Methanomicrobiaceae, a family that is so far poorly characterized at the genome level. The only other type strain of the genus with a sequenced genome, Methanoplanus petrolearius SEBR 4847T, turned out to be misclassified and required reclassification to Methanolacinia. Both, Methanoplanus and Methanolacinia, needed taxonomic emendations due to a signifi-cant deviation of the G+C content of their genomes from previously published (pre-genome-sequence era) values. Until now genome sequences were published for only four of the 33 species with validly published names in the Methanomicrobiaceae. Here we describe the fea-tures of M. limicola, together with the improved-high-quality draft genome sequence and annotation of the type strain, M3T. The 3,200,946 bp long chromosome (permanent draft se-quence) with its 3,064 protein-coding and 65 RNA genes is a part of the Genomic Encyclo-pedia of Bacteria and Archaea project.