The H. influenzae DNA uptake signal sequence is overrepresented in H. ducreyi and H. somnus (2). Bakkali et al. (2) report 41 Haemophilus-specific uptake sequences (hUSs) in H. ducreyi, most of which cluster in 2 islands of bacteriophage genes. We found the H. influenzae consensus of “AAGTGCGGT” (and its reverse complement “ACCGCACTT”) in 37 locations throughout the H. ducreyi 35000HP genome, and in agreement with the previous report, most of these were in areas containing bacteriophage genes. In addition, 32 (87%) of the consensus sequence locations in H. ducreyi 35000HP were in CDSs. Bakkali et al. (2) also reported that the unfinished sequence of H. somnus 129Pt has 1205 hUSs. We found that the finished genome sequence of H. somnus 129Pt had approximately 1244 potential hUSs. 62% (776) of these sites were within coding sequences and the rest were in intergenic regions. H. somnus 129Pt, H. ducreyi 35000HP and H. influenzae Rd all had genes involved in DNA uptake and transformation (11, 12, 45)(Table S13).
