Query: NC_019950:3818000 Mycobacterium canettii CIPT 140060008 complete genome
Lineage: Mycobacterium canettii; Mycobacterium; Mycobacteriaceae; Actinomycetales; Actinobacteria; Bacteria
General Information: Mycobacterium canettii, and related tubercle bacilli that cause human tuberculosis and exhibit unusual smooth colony morphology, are restricted to East-Africa.
Subject: NC_011896:491052 Mycobacterium leprae Br4923, complete genome
Lineage: Mycobacterium leprae; Mycobacterium; Mycobacteriaceae; Actinomycetales; Actinobacteria; Bacteria
General Information: This strain was isolated from a human skin biopsy in Brazil, and passaged in nude mice and armadillos. The bacterium is a close relative of M. tuberculosis. However, compared to the latter, the genome of M. leprae is smaller due to reductive genome evolution, with many important metabolic activities including siderophore production, part of the oxidative chain, most of the microaerophilic and anaerobic respiratory chains, and numerous catabolic systems and their regulatory circuits eliminated due to extensive recombination events between dispersed repetitive sequences. It is evident that this species has undergone massive genome reduction over time as a result of its parasitic nature, discarding more than half its genes and rendering it the most striking example of genome reduction in a microbial pathogen.