Ingle, Danielle J., Walsh, Calum J., Samuel, Genevieve R., Wick, Ryan R., Davidovich, Nadav, Fiocchi, Eleonora, Judd, Louise M., Elliman, Jennifer, Owens, Leigh, Stinear, Timothy P., Basso, Andrea, Pretto, Tobia, and Newton, Hayley J. (2025) The complete genome sequence of the crayfish pathogen Candidatus Paracoxiella cheracis n.g. n.sp. provides insight into pathogenesis and the phylogeny of the Coxiellaceae family. mSphere, 10 (4). e01002-24.

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Abstract

he Coxiellaceae bacterial family, within the order Legionellales, is defined by a collection of poorly characterized obligate intracellular bacteria. The zoonotic pathogen and causative agent of human Q fever, Coxiella burnetii, represents the best-characterized member of this family. Coxiellaceae establish replicative niches within diverse host cells and rely on their host for survival, making them challenging to isolate and cultivate within a laboratory setting. Here, we describe a new genus within the Coxiellaceae family that has been previously shown to infect economically significant freshwater crayfish. Using culture-independent long-read metagenomics, we reconstructed the complete genome of this novel organism and demonstrate that the species previously referred to as Candidatus Coxiella cheraxi represents a novel genus within this family, herein denoted Candidatus Paracoxiella cheracis. Interestingly, we demonstrate that Candidatus P. cheracis encodes a complete, putatively functional Dot/Icm type 4 secretion system that likely mediates the intracellular success of this pathogen. In silico analysis defined a unique repertoire of Dot/Icm effector proteins and highlighted homologs of several important C. burnetii effectors, including a homolog of CpeB that was demonstrated to be a Dot/Icm substrate in C. burnetii.

Item ID:	85279
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	2379-5042
Copyright Information:	© 2025 Ingle et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Funders:	National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (NHMRC)
Projects and Grants:	NHMRC GNT1195210, NHMRC GNT1194325, NHMRC GNT2010841
Date Deposited:	29 Apr 2025 22:57
FoR Codes:	31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3105 Genetics > 310509 Genomics @ 30% 31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3104 Evolutionary biology > 310410 Phylogeny and comparative analysis @ 70%
SEO Codes:	28 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 2801 Expanding knowledge > 280102 Expanding knowledge in the biological sciences @ 80% 10 ANIMAL PRODUCTION AND ANIMAL PRIMARY PRODUCTS > 1002 Fisheries - aquaculture > 100201 Aquaculture crustaceans (excl. rock lobster and prawns) @ 20%
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