Leibniz-Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology, Jena, Germany.
PLoS One. 2012;7(4):e35097. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0035097. Epub 2012 Apr 10.
Chlamydiaceae are a family of obligate intracellular pathogens causing a wide range of diseases in animals and humans, and facing unique evolutionary constraints not encountered by free-living prokaryotes. To investigate genomic aspects of infection, virulence and host preference we have sequenced Chlamydia psittaci, the pathogenic agent of ornithosis.
A comparison of the genome of the avian Chlamydia psittaci isolate 6BC with the genomes of other chlamydial species, C. trachomatis, C. muridarum, C. pneumoniae, C. abortus, C. felis and C. caviae, revealed a high level of sequence conservation and synteny across taxa, with the major exception of the human pathogen C. trachomatis. Important differences manifest in the polymorphic membrane protein family specific for the Chlamydiae and in the highly variable chlamydial plasticity zone. We identified a number of psittaci-specific polymorphic membrane proteins of the G family that may be related to differences in host-range and/or virulence as compared to closely related Chlamydiaceae. We calculated non-synonymous to synonymous substitution rate ratios for pairs of orthologous genes to identify putative targets of adaptive evolution and predicted type III secreted effector proteins.
This study is the first detailed analysis of the Chlamydia psittaci genome sequence. It provides insights in the genome architecture of C. psittaci and proposes a number of novel candidate genes mostly of yet unknown function that may be important for pathogen-host interactions.
衣原体科是一类专性细胞内病原体,可引起动物和人类的广泛疾病,并面临着自由生活原核生物所没有的独特进化限制。为了研究感染、毒力和宿主偏好的基因组方面,我们对鹦鹉热衣原体(引起鸟疫的病原体)进行了测序。
将禽源衣原体分离株 6BC 的基因组与其他衣原体种、沙眼衣原体、鼠型衣原体、肺炎衣原体、流产衣原体、猫型衣原体和豚鼠衣原体的基因组进行比较,显示出跨分类群的高水平序列保守性和基因排列一致性,主要例外是人类病原体沙眼衣原体。在特定于衣原体的多态性膜蛋白家族和高度可变的衣原体可塑性区中,出现了重要的差异。我们鉴定了一些鹦鹉热衣原体特异性的 G 家族多态性膜蛋白,与密切相关的衣原体科相比,这些蛋白可能与宿主范围和/或毒力的差异有关。我们计算了一对同源基因的非同义到同义替换率比值,以鉴定可能适应进化的潜在靶点,并预测了 III 型分泌效应蛋白。
本研究是对鹦鹉热衣原体基因组序列的首次详细分析。它提供了对 C. psittaci 基因组结构的深入了解,并提出了许多新的候选基因,这些基因大多功能未知,可能对病原体-宿主相互作用很重要。