โ Scribed by Bergman, Nicholas H.
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Historically, B. anthracis has been defi ned from other closely related Bacillus cereus group members through a number of variable phenotypic features (Table 6.1 ). These traits are related to chromosomal features that are very minor differences. By way of example, motility separates B. cereus from B. anthracis ; however, when one examines the genomes in detail, there are fewer than fi ve changes in the chromosomal content encoding the fl agella machinery in B. anthracis , and most of those are point mutations resulting in frameshifts and the introduction of premature stop codon (Rasko, unpublished material). The current absolute defi nition of the " B. anthracis " is related to the carriage of the two virulence -associated plasmids pXO1 and pXO2 that encode the tripartite anthrax toxin and poly -ฮณ -D -glutamic acid capsule, respectively (Okinaka et al., 1999a,b ;Pannucci et al., 2002 ). These plasmids are the basis for the molecular defi nition of B. anthracis and rapid molecular tests that are now utilized to positively identify this species; however, as was discovered by Hoffmaster et al (2004) , this is based on the fl awed concept that these plasmids only exist in the B. anthracis species.
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