Comparative Analysis of Lineage Structure, Cellulose Locus Context, and Mobilome Diversity Across Complete...

Komagataeibacter strains are important bacterial cellulose producers, yet closely related isolates can differ in cellulose yield, pellicle properties, and genetic stability during propagation. Such variability suggests that lineage structure and mobile genetic elements both contribute to strain-level genomic divergence. Here, complete genome comparisons were used to integrate vertical relatedness, gene-content structure, cellulose-associated signatures, and mobilome heterogeneity across 22 closed Komagataeibacter assemblies. A maximum likelihood phylogeny inferred from 642 single copy core genes provided the lineage scaffold. An anvi'o pangenome analysis defined a constant core gene cluster component across genomes and a noncore fraction that accounted for most of the genome differences in gene content. Targeted features linked to cellulose biosynthesis and local c-di-GMP-associated context were extracted from each genome. These features captured differences in bcs neighborhood composition and the presence of nearby GGDEF and EAL domain signals. The resulting feature matrix was projected by principal component analysis to summarize between-genome variation. Mobilome profiles were strongly strain dependent. Plasmid homology clustering identified 12 clusters comprising 36 plasmids from 13 genomes, including two dominant clusters of seven and six plasmids. Mash-based distance summaries further distinguished clusters consistent with conserved backbones from clusters consistent with heterogeneous, module-driven relationships. Prophage sequences, assessed as VIBRANT-predicted regions, were widespread but sparse per genome and dominated by medium length fragments. Insertion sequence burden ranged from 50 to 181 elements per genome, indicating substantial differences in transposition-associated sequence content. Pairwise association tests did not support robust cross module covariation beyond expected relationships among pangenome composition metrics at the current sampling depth. Overall, these results provide a complete genome reference framework linking lineage structure and mobilome heterogeneity, and they define reusable resources for comparative studies in bacterial cellulose biotechnology.