Complete Genome Sequence of Neisseria meningitidis Serogroup B Strain MC58

• Published in: Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 287; no. 5459; pp. 1809 - 1815
• Main Authors: Tettelin, Hervé, Saunders, Nigel J., Heidelberg, John, Jeffries, Alex C., Nelson, Karen E., Eisen, Jonathan A., Ketchum, Karen A., Hood, Derek W., Peden, John F., Dodson, Robert J., Nelson, William C., Gwinn, Michelle L., DeBoy, Robert, Peterson, Jeremy D., Hickey, Erin K., Haft, Daniel H., Salzberg, Steven L., White, Owen, Fleischmann, Robert D., Dougherty, Brian A., Mason, Tanya, Ciecko, Anne, Parksey, Debbie S., Blair, Eric, Cittone, Henry, Clark, Emily B., Cotton, Matthew D., Utterback, Terry R., Khouri, Hoda, Qin, Haiying, Vamathevan, Jessica, Gill, John, Scarlato, Vincenzo, Masignani, Vega, Pizza, Mariagrazia, Grandi, Guido, Sun, Li, Smith, Hamilton O., Fraser, Claire M., Moxon, E. Richard, Rappuoli, Rino, Venter, J. Craig
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Society for the Advancement of Science 10-03-2000; American Association for the Advancement of Science; The American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Subjects: Antigenic Variation; Antigens, Bacterial - immunology; ATP binding cassette transporters; Bacteremia - microbiology; Bacterial Capsules - genetics; Bacterial Proteins - genetics; Bacterial Proteins - physiology; Bacteriology; Biological and medical sciences; Biosynthesis; Capsules; Coding; Deoxyribonucleic acid; DNA; DNA Transposable Elements; Duplication; Evolution, Molecular; Fimbriae, Bacterial - genetics; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Genetic transposition; Genetics; Genome, Bacterial; Genomes; Genomics; Humans; Immune system; Meningitis, Meningococcal - microbiology; Meningococcal Infections - microbiology; Microbiology; Molecular Sequence Data; Mutation; Neisseria meningitidis; Neisseria meningitidis - classification; Neisseria meningitidis - genetics; Neisseria meningitidis - pathogenicity; Neisseria meningitidis - physiology; Open Reading Frames; Operon; Pathogens; Phylogeny; Polysaccharides; Protein metabolism; Recombination, Genetic; Sequence Analysis, DNA; Serotyping; Transformation, Bacterial; Virulence - genetics; Genetic mapping; Gene; Nucleotide sequence; Neisseriaceae; Bacteria; Micrococcales; Neisseria meningitidis; Genome
• ISSN: 0036-8075; 1095-9203
• DOI: 10.1126/science.287.5459.1809

The 2,272,351-base pair genome of Neisseria meningitidis strain 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 of N. meningitidis can 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. meningitidis contains 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.