Mycobacterium leprae 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
More...respiratory chains, and numerous catabolic systems and their regulatory circuits eliminated due to extensive recombination events between dispersed repetitive sequences. Twenty seven percent of the M. leprae genome consists of pseudogenes that have functional counterparts in M. tuberculosis. One of the possible reasons for elimination of these genes is the loss of the DnaQ-mediated proofreading activities of DNA polymerase III. 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. Less...
Reference genome:  
Mycobacterium leprae ASM325377v1
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