Fluorescence in-situ hybridisation of T. whipplei. Click on image for enlargement and explanation. Copyright: Infectious Diseases Society of America, 2001.

The Sanger Institute has published the sequence of the genome of T. whipplei strain TW08/27 in collaboration with Prof. David Relman and Dr. Matthias Maiwald of Stanford University, USA and Prof. Mark Pallen of the Division of Immunity and Infection, University of Birmingham, UK.

T. whipplei is a Gram +ve human pathogen that is the causative agent of Whipple's disease. The sequence and analysis is described in Bentley et al (2003) Lancet 361 637-644, and has been submitted to EMBL/GenBank with the accession number BX072543.

The genome is 925,938 bp long, with a G+C content of 46.3%. and is predicted to encode 784 proteins. The sequence and annotation is available for download in Artemis format by FTP and the DNA sequence and predicted proteins can be searched using our BLAST server.

Further information, including a gene map, functional classification and gene searching facilities will be available from this site soon.

Other sites that may be of interest:

• A recent review on T. whipplei (95K PDF file; Reproduced with permission from University of Chicago Press. Copyright: Infectious Diseases Society of America, 2001).

• Bug of the Month from Microbiology Department, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto.

• Whipples Disease Online for more detailed clinical information.