Francisella tularensis, a Gram-negative coccobacillus, is an extremely virulent intracellular
pathogen. Infection of humans with this pathogen results in tularemia, a life-threatening
disease. An approximately 35 kb region found in the F. tularensis genome exhibits many
features of a pathogenicity island. This region has a lower G+C content than the average
G+C content of the F. tularensis genome, and is surrounded by transposable elements.
Results from both a previous study and our present study demonstrated that at least four
genes located on the Francisella pathogenicity island (FPI) are required for virulence. This
represents the first description of a pathogenicity island in F. tularensis. The FPI-encoded
proteins, however, have no significant similarities to any known bacterial proteins.
Therefore, we believe that the FPI genes may encode a cluster of novel virulence factors,
although the mechanism and their characteristics remain to be determined.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/622 |
| Date | 10 April 2008 |
| Creators | Zhang, Na. |
| Contributors | Nano, Francis E. |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Detected Language | English |
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