Neorickettsia sennetsu
Classification
Higher order taxa
Kingdom: Bacteria
Phylum: Proteobacteria
Class: Alphaproteobacteria
Order: Rickettsiales
Family: Anaplasmataceae
Genus
Genus: Neorickettsia
Species: sennetsu
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NCBI: Taxonomy |
Description and significance
When research began on N. sennetsu it was classified as Ehrlichia sennetsu, based on the morphological, ecological, epidemiological and clinical infection characteristics, which were similar to other Erhlichia spp. More recent genetic analysis of the 16S rRna genes, heat shock proteins (groESL), surface proteins, and most recently RNA polymerase beta-subunit have reclassified Ehrlichia sennetsu as Neorickettsia sennetsu. The Anaplasmataceae family now consists of four genera, Ehrlichia, Neorickettsia, Wolbachia and Anaplasma.
Members of the family Anaplasmataceae are Gram-negative obligatory intracellular bacteria, meaning that they cannot survive out side their eukaryotic host cell. The different species within this family are specific to different compartments with in the host cell, such as granulocytes, platelets, endothelial cells, monocytes, macrophages, or red blood cells.
N. sennetsu is only infectious to human beings. This disease has only been found in Japan and Malaysia3. Though unknown, the vector of N. sennetsu is thought to be trematodes in fish. The bacteria infect those that eat improperly cooked fish or raw fish (according to the CDC). The bacteria invade monocytes and macrophages. The infection causes Sennetsu fever, which has the following symptoms fever, chills, headache, sore throat, insomnia4.
The entire genome of all four known strains of N. sennetsu are sequenced.
The following shows5 (a)the relationship between different species by the sequence of the 16S RNA gene and (b) the infection of a cell by E. sennetsu:
Genome structure
Total number of DNA molecules: 1; circular chromosome; no plasmids
Total size of all DNA molecules: 859006bp
Total genes: 971
Protein coding genes: 935
tRNA genes: 33
mRNA genes: 3
Cell structure and metabolism
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Ecology
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Pathology
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Application to Biotechnology
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Current Research
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References
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1. http://cmr.tigr.org/tigr-scripts/CMR/GenomePage.cgi?org=ges
Edited by student of Rachel Larsen and Kit Pogliano
