美国农业部农业研究局（ARS）的研究人员成功的破译了一种蜂类病原体的基因组。Nosema ceranae是一种单细胞产孢寄生虫，它被怀疑是导致蜂群崩溃综合症（CCD）的多个病原体之一。CCD是美国在2006年10月最早报导的，一些养蜂人称由此带来的损失超过90%。据美国农业部称，蜜蜂的处境非常危险。它们在美国价值150亿的作物种植业中发挥着重要的作用。
据PLoS Pathogens发表的文章称，Nosema基因组含786万对碱基。N. ceranae基因组描绘能加深对Nosema寄生病的理解并最终使其得以缓解。研究人员鉴定出89个可能在Nosema-蜜蜂相互影响中起重要作用的基因，称它们是分泌蛋白的编码基因，这些蛋白可能会对寄主组织产生影响。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原始出处：
PLoS Pathog 5(6): e1000466. doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1000466
Genomic Analyses of the Microsporidian Nosema ceranae, an Emergent Pathogen of Honey Bees
R. Scott Cornman1, Yan Ping Chen1, Michael C. Schatz2, Craig Street3, Yan Zhao4, Brian Desany5, Michael Egholm5, Stephen Hutchison5, Jeffery S. Pettis1, W. Ian Lipkin3, Jay D. Evans1*
1 USDA-ARS Bee Research Lab, Beltsville, Maryland, United States of America, 2 Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States of America, 3 Center for Infection and Immunity, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America, 4 USDA-ARS Molecular Plant Pathology Laboratory, Beltsville, Maryland, United States of America, 5 454 Life Sciences/Roche Applied Sciences, Branford, Connecticut, United States of America
Recent steep declines in honey bee health have severely impacted the beekeeping industry, presenting new risks for agricultural commodities that depend on insect pollination. Honey bee declines could reflect increased pressures from parasites and pathogens. The incidence of the microsporidian pathogen Nosema ceranae has increased significantly in the past decade. Here we present a draft assembly (7.86 MB) of the N. ceranae genome derived from pyrosequence data, including initial gene models and genomic comparisons with other members of this highly derived fungal lineage. N. ceranae has a strongly AT-biased genome (74% A+T) and a diversity of repetitive elements, complicating the assembly. Of 2,614 predicted protein-coding sequences, we conservatively estimate that 1,366 have homologs in the microsporidian Encephalitozoon cuniculi, the most closely related published genome sequence. We identify genes conserved among microsporidia that lack clear homology outside this group, which are of special interest as potential virulence factors in this group of obligate parasites. A substantial fraction of the diminutive N. ceranae proteome consists of novel and transposable-element proteins. For a majority of well-supported gene models, a conserved sense-strand motif can be found within 15 bases upstream of the start codon; a previously uncharacterized version of this motif is also present in E. cuniculi. These comparisons provide insight into the architecture, regulation, and evolution of microsporidian genomes, and will drive investigations into honey bee–Nosema interactions.
