Complete Genome Sequence ofNeisseria meningitidisSerogroup B Strain MC58
Hervé Tettelin, Nigel J. Saunders, John Heidelberg, Alex C. Jeffries, Karen E. Nelson, Jonathan A. Eisen, Karen A. Ketchum, Derek W. Hood, John F. Peden, Robert J. Dodson, William C. Nelson, Michelle L. Gwinn, Robert DeBoy, Jeremy D. Peterson, Erin K. Hickey, Daniel H. Haft, Steven L. Salzberg, Owen White, Robert D. Fleischmann, Brian A. Dougherty, Tanya Mason, Anne Ciecko, Debbie S. Parksey, Eric Blair, Henry Cittone, Emily B. Clark, Matthew D. Cotton, Terry R. Utterback, Hoda Khouri, Haiying Qin, Jessica Vamathevan, John Gill, Vincenzo Scarlato, Vega Masignani, Mariagrazia Pizza, Guido Grandi, Li Sun, Hamilton O. Smith, Claire M. Fraser, E. Richard Moxon, Rino Rappuoli, J. Craig Venter- Multidisciplinary
The 2,272,351–base pair genome ofNeisseria meningitidisstrain MC58 (serogroup B), a causative agent of meningitis and septicemia, contains 2158 predicted coding regions, 1158 (53.7%) of which were assigned a biological role. Three major islands of horizontal DNA transfer were identified; two of these contain genes encoding proteins involved in pathogenicity, and the third island contains coding sequences only for hypothetical proteins. Insights into the commensal and virulence behavior ofN. meningitidiscan be gleaned from the genome, in which sequences for structural proteins of the pilus are clustered and several coding regions unique to serogroup B capsular polysaccharide synthesis can be identified. Finally,N. meningitidiscontains more genes that undergo phase variation than any pathogen studied to date, a mechanism that controls their expression and contributes to the evasion of the host immune system.