<it>Mycoplasma haemocanis</it> – the canine hemoplasma and its feline counterpart in the genomic era
<p>Abstract</p> <p><it>Mycoplasma haemocanis</it> is a hemotrophic mycoplasma (hemoplasma), blood pathogen that may cause acute disease in immunosuppressed or splenectomized dogs. The genome of the strain Illinois, isolated from blood of a naturally infected dog, has be...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
BMC
2012-09-01
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| Series: | Veterinary Research |
| Online Access: | http://www.veterinaryresearch.org/content/43/1/66 |
| Summary: | <p>Abstract</p> <p><it>Mycoplasma haemocanis</it> is a hemotrophic mycoplasma (hemoplasma), blood pathogen that may cause acute disease in immunosuppressed or splenectomized dogs. The genome of the strain Illinois, isolated from blood of a naturally infected dog, has been entirely sequenced and annotated to gain a better understanding of the biology of <it>M. haemocanis</it>. Its single circular chromosome has 919 992 bp and a low G + C content (35%), representing a typical mycoplasmal genome. A gene-by-gene comparison against its feline counterpart, <it>M. haemofelis</it>, reveals a very similar composition and architecture with most of the genes having conserved synteny extending over their entire chromosomes and differing only by a small set of unique protein coding sequences. As in <it>M. haemofelis</it>, <it>M. haemocanis</it> metabolic pathways are reduced and apparently rely heavily on the nutrients afforded by its host environment. The presence of a major percentage of its genome dedicated to paralogous genes (63.7%) suggests that this bacterium might use antigenic variation as a mechanism to evade the host’s immune system as also observed in <it>M. haemofelis</it> genome. Phylogenomic comparisons based on average nucleotide identity (ANI) and tetranucleotide signature suggest that these two pathogens are different species of mycoplasmas, with <it>M. haemocanis</it> infecting dogs and <it>M. haemofelis</it> infecting cats.</p> |
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| ISSN: | 0928-4249 1297-9716 |