Draft Genome Analysis and Virulence Gene Profiling of Escherichia coli ERR039477

Escherichia coli is a highly diverse bacterial species with strains ranging from harmless commensals to pathogenic lineages. Here, we present a draft genome assembly and virulence gene analysis of the E. coli isolate ERR039477. Illumina paired-end sequencing reads were quality-checked, trimmed, and assembled using SPAdes, producing a draft genome of 4,420,077 bp across 2,450 contigs with a GC content of 50.7% and an N50 of 2,794 bp. Genome annotation with Prokka identified 6,151 protein-coding sequences, including 4,675 with putative functions, 38 tRNAs, a complete rRNA operon, and two CRISPR arrays. Species-level assignment was validated using KmerFinder and TYGS analyses, confirming placement within the E. coli clade. Virulence profiling against the Virulence Factor Database (VFDB) revealed a diverse repertoire of genes. These are associated with motility, adhesion, invasion, immune modulation and iron acquisition. The most abundant virulence factors included flagellar biosynthesis genes (fliP, fliI, flhA, flgD, flgI, flgG), fimbrial adhesion genes (fimD), and iron uptake systems (entA, entB, entE, entF, fepA). Antimicrobial resistance screening using ResFinder did not detect any known acquired resistance genes in the genome. Additionally, pathogenicity prediction with PathogenFinder classified the isolate as a human pathogen with a probability score of 0.886, supported by numerous matches to pathogenic protein families. These findings indicate that ERR039477 holds genetic traits associated with pathogenic potential. This study provides a comprehensive genomic resource and virulence gene profile for ERR039477. Also illustrating a reproducible workflow for combining genome assembly, annotation along with virulence screening. The results offer a valuable reference for comparative studies of E. coli isolates and pathogenicity research.