Protochlamydia genome sequencing project. Candidatus Protochlamydia sp. R18

We originally have isolated several environmental acanthamoebae harboring endosymbiotic bacteria, from Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan. In particular, an amoebal endosymbiont, /Neochlamydia/ S13 was of high interest, because of the amoebal infectious rate of always 100% with not seeing amoebal lysis and lacking transferability to other host amoebae, strongly suggesting intimate mutualistic interaction with acanthamoebae based on unique genome feature of the endosymbiot, /Neochlamydia/ S13. We therefore determined the draft genome of the /Neochlamydia /and then the predictive protein-coding genes (CDSs) were compared with the other amoebal endosymbiotic bacteria (e.g. /Protochlamydia/R18).