Logo: to the web site of Uppsala University

uu.sePublications from Uppsala University
Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Rickettsia: The highly rearranged cousin of mitochondria
Uppsala University, Teknisk-naturvetenskapliga vetenskapsområdet, Faculty of Science and Technology, Biology, Department of Evolutionary Biology, Molecular Evolution.
2001 In: Recent Res. Dev. Microbiol., Vol. 5, p. 321-329Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2001. Vol. 5, p. 321-329
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-89694OAI: oai:DiVA.org:uu-89694DiVA, id: diva2:161380
Available from: 2002-03-06 Created: 2002-03-06Bibliographically approved
In thesis
1. Patterns and Processes of Molecular Evolution in Rickettsia
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Patterns and Processes of Molecular Evolution in Rickettsia
2002 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

Species of the genus Rickettsia are obligate intracellular parasites of the a-proteobacterial subdivision. It has been suggested that obligate intracellular bacteria have evolved from free-living bacteria with much larger genome sizes. Transitions to intracellular growth habitats are normally associated with radical genomic alterations, particularly genome rearrangements and gene losses.

This thesis presents a comparative study of evolutionary processes such as gene rearrangements, deletions and duplications in a variety of Rickettsia species. The results show that early intrachromosomal recombination events mediated by duplicated genes and short repeats have resulted in deletions as well as rearrangements. For example, an exceptional organization of the elongation factor genes was found in all species examined, suggesting that this rearrangement event occurred at the early stage of the evolution of Rickettsia. Likewise, it was found that a repetitive element, the so-called Rickettsia Palindromic Element (RPE) flourished prior to species divergence in Rickettsia. Finally, a phylogenetic analysis shows that the duplication events that gave rise to the five genes encoding ATP/ADP transporters occurred long before the divergence of the two major groups of Rickettsia. Taken together, this suggests that Rickettsia have been intracellular parasites for an extensive period of time.

A detailed analysis of the patterns of nucleotide changes in genes and intergenic regions among the different species provides evidence for a gradual accumulation of short deletions. This suggests that different distributions of genes and repeated sequences in modern Rickettsia species reflect species-specific differences in rates of deterioration rather than variation in rates of intra-genomic sequence proliferation.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 2002. p. 40
Series
Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology, ISSN 1104-232X ; 689
Keywords
Developmental biology, Utvecklingsbiologi
National Category
Developmental Biology
Research subject
Molecular Biology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-1789 (URN)91-554-5248-5 (ISBN)
Public defence
2002-03-22, Lindahlsalen, Uppsala, 10:00
Opponent
Available from: 2002-03-06 Created: 2002-03-06Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

No full text in DiVA

By organisation
Molecular Evolution

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar

urn-nbn

Altmetric score

urn-nbn
Total: 626 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf