Proposal to create subspecies of Rickettsia conorii based on multi-locus sequence typing and an emended description of Rickettsia conorii.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Rickettsiae closely related to the Malish strain, the reference Rickettsia conorii strain, include Indian tick typhus rickettsia (ITTR), Israeli spotted fever rickettsia (ISFR), and Astrakhan fever rickettsia (AFR). Although closely related genotypically, they are distinct serotypically. Using multilocus sequence typing (MLST), we have recently found that distinct serotypes may not always represent distinct species within the Rickettsia genus. We investigated the possibility of classifying rickettsiae closely related to R. conorii as R. conorii subspecies as proposed by the ad hoc committee on reconciliation of approaches to bacterial systematics. For this, we first estimated their genotypic variability by using MLST including the sequencing of 5 genes, of 31 rickettsial

SUBMITTER: Zhu Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1079849 | biostudies-literature | 2005 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature