Characterization of Ehrlichia mineirensis genome sequence: insights into Ehrlichia evolution.. Ehrlichia minasensis

Ehrlichia species are the etiological agents of emerging and life-threatening tick-borne human zoonoses that inflict serious and fatal infections in companion animals and livestock. Ehrlichia mineirensis is a new Ehrlichia species isolated from Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus ticks in Brazil that is closely related to E. canis. The phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA , groEL, dsb and gltA showed that E. mineirensis falls in a clade separated from any previously reported Ehrlichia spp. The molecular analysis of the ortholog of gp36, the major immunoreactive glycoproteins in E. canis and ortholog of the E. chaffeensis gp47,showed a unique tandem repeat of 9 amino acids (VPAASGDAQ) when compared with those reported for E. canis , E. chaffeensis and the related mucin-like protein in E. ruminantium. Genome sequence yielded a genome assembly of 1414910 bp and 187 contigs with a N50 of 32220. The assembly showed high overall similarity with the E. canis Jake genome while harboring many indels and substitutions sparse along the sequence.