Genome links typhus bug to mitochondrion
Pennisi, E.
Science 282(5392): 1243
1998
ISSN/ISBN: 0036-8075 PMID: 9867626 Document Number: 496393
Molecular microbiologist Charles Kurland of the University of Uppsala in Sweden and colleagues describe the complete sequence of the typhus bacterium in Nature. The genome of Rickettsia prowazekii, now one of 18 microbial genomes completed, consists of 1.1-million-base pairs. The team, which began the sequencing project six years ago, found 834 genes in Rickettsia, 6 of which code for proteins similar to those that provide the virulence for other bacteria. Functional genes were found to take up only 75 percent of the bacterium's DNA, whereas all other bacterial genomes have little superfluous DNA. Evolutionary biologist Carl Woese of the University of Illinois, Urbana, expects to see more examples of such gene inactivation in the genomes of parasitic microbes and believes the observation will probably be a trendsetter for the field.