Candidatus Rickettsia mendelii has the smallest and most ancestral-like genome in the genus Rickettsia
Yasuhiro Gotoh, Kentaro Kasama, Seigo Yamamoto, Shuji Yoshino, Hiroki Kawabata, Shuji Ando, Tetsuya Hayashi
The paper isolates and analyzes six Candidatus Rickettsia mendelii strains, finding they have the smallest genome in the genus Rickettsia and retain features of the ancestral Rickettsia genome.
bioRxiv · Dec 9, 2025 · PreprintMicrobiology