Cole S T, Eiglmeier K, Parkhill J, James K D, Thomson N R, Wheeler P R, Honoré N, Garnier T, Churcher C, Harris D, Mungall K, Basham D, Brown D, Chillingworth T, Connor R, Davies R M, Devlin K, Duthoy S, Feltwell T, Fraser A, Hamlin N, Holroyd S, Hornsby T, Jagels K, Lacroix C, Maclean J, Moule S, Murphy L, Oliver K, Quail M A, Rajandream M A, Rutherford K M, Rutter S, Seeger K, Simon S, Simmonds M, Skelton J, Squares R, Squares S, Stevens K, Taylor K, Whitehead S, Woodward J R, Barrell B G
Unité de Génétique Moléculaire Bactérienne, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France.
Nature. 2001 Feb 22;409(6823):1007-11. doi: 10.1038/35059006.
Leprosy, a chronic human neurological disease, results from infection with the obligate intracellular pathogen Mycobacterium leprae, a close relative of the tubercle bacillus. Mycobacterium leprae has the longest doubling time of all known bacteria and has thwarted every effort at culture in the laboratory. Comparing the 3.27-megabase (Mb) genome sequence of an armadillo-derived Indian isolate of the leprosy bacillus with that of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (4.41 Mb) provides clear explanations for these properties and reveals an extreme case of reductive evolution. Less than half of the genome contains functional genes but pseudogenes, with intact counterparts in M. tuberculosis, abound. Genome downsizing and the current mosaic arrangement appear to have resulted from extensive recombination events between dispersed repetitive sequences. Gene deletion and decay have eliminated many important metabolic activities including siderophore production, part of the oxidative and most of the microaerophilic and anaerobic respiratory chains, and numerous catabolic systems and their regulatory circuits.
麻风病是一种慢性人类神经疾病，由专性细胞内病原体麻风分枝杆菌感染引起，麻风分枝杆菌是结核杆菌的近亲。麻风分枝杆菌是所有已知细菌中倍增时间最长的，并且阻碍了实验室中的每一次培养尝试。将源自犰狳的印度麻风杆菌分离株的327万个碱基对（Mb）基因组序列与结核分枝杆菌（441 Mb）的基因组序列进行比较，为这些特性提供了清晰的解释，并揭示了一个极端的简化进化案例。基因组中不到一半包含功能基因，但假基因很多，在结核分枝杆菌中有完整的对应物。基因组缩小和当前的镶嵌排列似乎是由分散的重复序列之间广泛的重组事件导致的。基因缺失和衰变消除了许多重要的代谢活动，包括铁载体的产生、部分氧化以及大部分微需氧和厌氧呼吸链，以及许多分解代谢系统及其调节回路。
