title: The map1 gene of Cowdria ruminantium is a member of a multigene family containing both conserved and variable genes.
abstract: Heartwater is an economically important disease of ruminants caused by the tick-transmitted rickettsia Cowdria ruminantium. The disease is present in Africa and the Caribbean and there is a risk of spread to the Americas, particularly because of a clinically asymptomatic carrier state in infected livestock and imported wild animals. The causative agent is closely related taxonomically to the human and animal pathogens Ehrlichia chaffeensis and Ehrlichia canis. A dominant immune response of infected animals or people is directed against variable outer membrane proteins of these agents known, in E. chaffeensis and E. canis, to be encoded by polymorphic multigene families. We demonstrate, by sequence analysis, that map1 encoding the major outer membrane protein of C. ruminantium is also encoded by a polymorphic multigene family. Two members of the gene family are located in tandem in the genome. The upstream member, orf2, is conserved, encoding only 2 amino acid substitutions among six different rickettsial strains from diverse locations in Africa and the Caribbean. In contrast, the downstream member, map1, contains variable and conserved regions between strains. Interestingly, orf2 is more closely related in sequence to omp1b of E. chaffeensis than to map1 of C. ruminantium. The regions that differ among orf2, map1, and omp1b correspond to previously identified variable sequences in outer membrane protein genes of E. chaffeensis and E. canis. These data suggest that diversity in these outer membrane proteins may arise by recombination among gene family members and offer a potential mechanism for persistence of infection in carrier animals.
authors: Department of Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Gainesville, Florida, 32611, USA.
authors: C R
authors: CR
authors: Sulsona
authors: S M
authors: SM
authors: Mahan
authors: A F
authors: AF
authors: Barbet
mesh_terms: D000349:Africa; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000942:Antigens, Bacterial; D001425:Bacterial Outer Membrane Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D017691:Caribbean Region; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D016208:Databases, Factual; D018469:Ehrlichia chaffeensis / Q000235:genetics; D016995:Ehrlichia ruminantium / Q000235:genetics*; D014644:Genetic Variation; D016680:Genome, Bacterial; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D005810:Multigene Family / Q000235:genetics*; D016366:Open Reading Frames / Q000235:genetics; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid
chemical_list: D000942:Antigens, Bacterial; D001425:Bacterial Outer Membrane Proteins; C086402:major antigenic protein 1, Cowdria ruminantium