Skip Navigation


Nucleic Acids Research Advance Access originally published online on August 6, 2009
Nucleic Acids Research 2009 37(18):6076-6091; doi:10.1093/nar/gkp642
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow Print PDF (2329K) Freely available
Right arrow Screen PDF (1336K) Freely available
Right arrow Supplementary Data
Right arrowOA All Versions of this Article:
37/18/6076    most recent
gkp642v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Commercial Re-use Guidelines
for Open Access NAR Content
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Lin, M.
Right arrow Articles by Rikihisa, Y.
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Lin, M.
Right arrow Articles by Rikihisa, Y.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Nucleic Acids Research, 2009, Vol. 37, No. 18 6076-6091
© 2009 The Author(s)
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Genomics

Analysis of complete genome sequence of Neorickettsia risticii: causative agent of Potomac horse fever

Mingqun Lin, Chunbin Zhang, Kathryn Gibson and Yasuko Rikihisa*

Department of Veterinary Biosciences, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA

*To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: +1 614 292 5661; Fax: +1 614 292 6473; Email: rikihisa.1{at}osu.edu

Received May 1, 2009. Revised July 17, 2009. Accepted July 19, 2009.

Neorickettsia risticii is an obligate intracellular bacterium of the trematodes and mammals. Horses develop Potomac horse fever (PHF) when they ingest aquatic insects containing encysted N. risticii-infected trematodes. The complete genome sequence of N. risticii Illinois consists of a single circular chromosome of 879 977 bp and encodes 38 RNA species and 898 proteins. Although N. risticii has limited ability to synthesize amino acids and lacks many metabolic pathways, it is capable of making major vitamins, cofactors and nucleotides. Comparison with its closely related human pathogen N. sennetsu showed that 758 (88.2%) of protein-coding genes are conserved between N. risticii and N. sennetsu. Four-way comparison of genes among N. risticii and other Anaplasmataceae showed that most genes are either shared among Anaplasmataceae (525 orthologs that generally associated with housekeeping functions), or specific to each genome (>200 genes that are mostly hypothetical proteins). Genes potentially involved in the pathogenesis of N. risticii were identified, including those encoding putative outer membrane proteins, two-component systems and a type IV secretion system (T4SS). The bipolar localization of T4SS pilus protein VirB2 on the bacterial surface was demonstrated for the first time in obligate intracellular bacteria. These data provide insights toward genomic potential of N. risticii and intracellular parasitism, and facilitate our understanding of PHF pathogenesis.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.