Assembly and Annotation of the Leptospira borgpetersenii serovar Hardjobovis Genome Sequence.
Annette McGrath1, John Davis2, Peter J Wilson, Dieter Bulach, Torsten Seemann, John Davies, Ross Coppel, Ben Adler, Elizabeth S Kuczek
1annette@agrf.org.au, Australian Genome Research Facility; 2john@agrf.org.au, Australian Genome Research Facility
Leptospirosis is a zoonosis of worldwide distribution caused by infection with any one of the more than 200 pathogenic serovars of Leptospira. In Australia, leptospirosis occurs primarily as an occupational zoonotic infection acquired from domestic animals, the main aetiological agents being L. borgpetersenii serovar (sv) Hardjobovis (cattle) and L. interrogans sv Pomona (pigs). The symptoms of leptospirosis vary from a mild febrile illness to a severe form resembling those of the viral haemorrhagic fevers and exhibiting a high mortality rate.
We have completed the assembly of the Leptospira genome, which contains a large chromosome (CI) of 3,614,529 base pairs and a smaller chromosome (CII) of 317,585 base pairs. It appears that the genome readily undergoes gene rearrangements and the presence of putative transposable elements may play a role in this process. IS1533 and IS5-like elements are present in multiple copies on all leptospiral genomes examined. The annotation of CII is complete and is currently in progress for CI.