Abstract
Orientia tsutsugamushi, an obligatory intracellular bacterium, is the causative agent of scrub typhus. Here, we identified and characterized Orientia clusters of genes for a type IV secretion system (T4SS). Two clusters of virB-virD4 loci were found in the Orientia genome. One cluster consisted of three vir genes (virB3, virB4, and virB6) and included three additional virB6-like coding sequences. The other cluster was composed of five genes (virB8, virB9, virB10, virB11, and virD4). These five genes were polycistronically transcribed as an operon. Several virB and virD4 genes of O. tsutsugamushi were transcriptionally active in cultured fibroblast and macrophage cell lines as well as in experimentally infected animals. This finding suggests that the T4SS may function in Orientia and may have a significant role in pathogenesis of scrub typhus.
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