The Genome Sequence of Rickettsia Felis Identifies the First Putative Conjugative Plasmid in an Obligate Intracellular Parasite

Overview

Journal PLoS Biol

Specialty Biology

Date 2005 Jun 30

PMID 15984913

Citations 131

Authors

Hiroyuki Ogata

Patricia Renesto

Stephane Audic

Catherine Robert

Guillaume Blanc

Pierre-Edouard Fournier

Hugues Parinello

Jean-Michel Claverie

Didier Raoult

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

We sequenced the genome of Rickettsia felis, a flea-associated obligate intracellular alpha-proteobacterium causing spotted fever in humans. Besides a circular chromosome of 1,485,148 bp, R. felis exhibits the first putative conjugative plasmid identified among obligate intracellular bacteria. This plasmid is found in a short (39,263 bp) and a long (62,829 bp) form. R. felis contrasts with previously sequenced Rickettsia in terms of many other features, including a number of transposases, several chromosomal toxin-antitoxin genes, many more spoT genes, and a very large number of ankyrin- and tetratricopeptide-motif-containing genes. Host-invasion-related genes for patatin and RickA were found. Several phenotypes predicted from genome analysis were experimentally tested: conjugative pili and mating were observed, as well as beta-lactamase activity, actin-polymerization-driven mobility, and hemolytic properties. Our study demonstrates that complete genome sequencing is the fastest approach to reveal phenotypic characters of recently cultured obligate intracellular bacteria.

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