Comparative genomics of Rhabdochlamydiaceae

The Rhabdochlamydiaceae family is part of the Chlamydiales order, that comprises intracellular obligate bacteria that share the same biphasic development cycle. While the most well-known and most studied members of this order are human pathogens like Chlamydia trachomatis, recent studies showed their widespread distribution in the environment. While C. trachomatis is seemingly restricted to mammals, other Chlamydiae were discovered in arthropods, protists, fishes and snakes. In particular, Rhabdochlamydiaceae were initially discovered in cockroaches and woodlouse. More recent studies also established its presence in ticks, spiders and in marine environments. In this study, we sequenced and analyzed ten genomes from ticks shown to be infected by Rhabdochlamydia.

穿孢衣原体科（Rhabdochlamydiaceae）隶属于衣原体目（Chlamydiales），该目包含所有共享双相发育周期的专性胞内细菌。该目中研究最为深入、认知最广泛的类群当属人类病原体沙眼衣原体（Chlamydia trachomatis），但近年研究表明衣原体目类群在环境中分布广泛。尽管沙眼衣原体似乎仅局限于哺乳动物宿主，其他衣原体类群已先后在节肢动物、原生生物、鱼类及蛇类中被发现。其中，穿孢衣原体科（Rhabdochlamydiaceae）最初于蟑螂与鼠妇体内被发现，后续研究又证实其可存在于蜱、蜘蛛及海洋环境中。本研究对10份来自被穿孢衣原体（Rhabdochlamydia）感染的蜱的基因组完成了测序与分析。