Rickettsia prowazekii

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Rickettsia prowazekii
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Bacteria
Phylum: Pseudomonadota
Class: Alphaproteobacteria
Order: Rickettsiales
Family: Rickettsiaceae
Genus: Rickettsia
Species group: Typhus group
Species:
R. prowazekii
Binomial name
Rickettsia prowazekii
da Rocha-Lima, 1916

Rickettsia prowazekii is a species of

human body louse. A form of R. prowazekii that exists in the feces of arthropods remains stably infective for months. R. prowazekii also appears to be the closest free-living relative of mitochondria, based on genome sequencing.[1]

History

Discovery

Henrique da Rocha Lima, a Brazilian doctor, discovered this bacterium in 1916. He named it after his colleague Stanislaus von Prowazek, who had died from typhus in 1915. Both Prowazek and Rocha Lima had been infected with typhus while studying its causative agent in a prisoner-of-war camp hospital in Cottbus, Germany.[2] This bacterium lacks flagella and is aerobic.[

antibiotics such as penicillin.[3]

Genome

The genome of R. prowazekii is reduced, being about 1Mb in size and encoding 834 proteins.[4] Some strains encode 866 proteins.[4] They do not encode all the proteins required to live on their own. Missing activities have to be provided by its host, a eukaryotic cell. For this reason, R. prowazekii has sometimes been regarded as a model for the intracellular bacterial ancestor of mitochondria.[1]

Treatment

Vaccines against R. prowazekii were developed in the 1940s, and were highly effective in reducing typhus deaths among U.S. soldiers during

Brill-Zinsser disease). Treatment with tetracycline antibiotics is usually successful.[citation needed
]

References

  1. ^
    PMID 9823893
    .
  2. Who Named It?
  3. gram-negative
  4. ^
    PMID 23814035
    .

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rickettsia_prowazekii&oldid=1217119906"