Rickettsia felis, from culture to genome sequencing.
Rickettsia felis has been recently cultured in XTC2 cells. This allows production of enough bacteria to create a genomic bank and to sequence it. The chromosome of R. felis is longer than that of previously sequenced rickettsiae and it possess 2 plasmids. Microscopically, this bacterium exhibits two forms of pili: one resembles a conjugative pilus and another forms hair-like projections that may play a role in pathogenicity. R. felis also exhibits several copies of ankyrin-repeat genes and tetratricopeptide encoding gene that are specifically linked to pathogenic host-associated bacteria. It also contains toxin-antitoxin system encoding genes that are extremely rare in intracellular bacteria and may be linked to plasmid maintenance.
Ogata
H
H
CNRSIBSM, Information Génomique et Structurale, Marseille, France.
Robert
C
C
Audic
S
S
Robineau
S
S
Blanc
G
G
Fournier
P E
PE
Renesto
P
P
Claverie
J M
JM
Raoult
D
D
D000818:Animals; D001431:Bacteriological Techniques; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000032:analysis*; D016680:Genome, Bacterial; D006801:Humans; D041161:Rickettsia felis / Q000235:genetics* / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000472:pathogenicity / Q000648:ultrastructure; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
D004269:DNA, Bacterial