New Synechococcus elongatus UTEX 2973 similar to, but not equal to PCC 7942

From a story
Cyanobacterium found in algae collection holds promise for biotech applications


**
To characterize the new strain, Washington University sequenced its genome. To the scientists' surprise, the new strain turned out to be remarkably similar to a widely studied cyanobacterium, Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942, originally discovered far away from Texas (in lakes in California), that grows only half as fast.

Since the genome sequences of the two strains are 99.8 percent identical, the genetic determinants of rapid growth almost certainly lie in the remaining 0.2 percent.

The proteomes (the set of proteins produced by an organism) of both of these strains were analyzed at the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a Department of Energy national scientific user facility located at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash. This data, which covers 68 percent of the proteins the microbes produce, will guide further work with both strains.

**


One wonders how this result will impact the USPTO view of claims such as

--
The method of claim 4, wherein said recombinant 1-alkene synthase is encoded by a gene at least 90% identical to a nucleotide sequence selected from the group consisting of: SEQ ID NO: 2 and SEQ ID NO: 4.

--from US 20140186877