Psychrophilic archaea are abundant and perform critical roles throughout the Earth's expansive cold biosphere. Here we report the first complete genome sequence for a psychrophilic methanogenic archaeon, Methanococcoides burtonii. The genome sequence was manually annotated including the use of a five tiered Evidence Rating system that ranked annotations from Evidence Rating (ER) 1 (gene product experimentally characterized from the parent organism) to ER5 (hypothetical gene product) to provide a rapid means of assessing the certainty of gene function predictions. The genome is characterized by a higher level of aberrant sequence composition (51%) than any other archaeon. In comparison to hyper/thermophilic archaea which are subject to selection of synonymous codon usage, M. burtonii has evolved cold adaptation through a genomic capacity to accommodate highly skewed amino acid content, while retaining codon usage in common with its mesophilic Methanosarcina cousins. Polysaccharide biosynthesis genes comprise at least 3.3% of protein coding genes in the genome, and Cell wall/membrane/envelope biogenesis COG genes are over-represented. Likewise, signal transduction (COG category T) genes are over-represented and M. burtonii has a high 'IQ' (a measure of adaptive potential) compared to many methanogens. Numerous genes in these two over-represented COG categories appear to have been acquired from {var_epsilon}- …

This bibliography has been prepared by Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) for the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Health and Environmental Research to provide bibliographic information in a usable format for research studies relating to the Chernobyl nuclear accident that occurred in the Ukrainian Republic, USSR in 1986. This report is a product of the Chernobyl Database Management project. The purpose of this project is to produce and maintain an information system that is the official United States repository for information related to the accident. Two related products prepared for this project are the Chernobyl Bibliographic Search System (ChernoLit{trademark}) and the Chernobyl Radiological Measurements Information System (ChernoDat). This report supersedes the original release of Chernobyl Bibliography (Carr and Mahaffey, 1989). The original report included about 2200 references. Over 4500 references and an index of authors and editors are included in this report.