Tagged star wars

Reductive Genome Evolution of Obligate Symbiont Midichloria humanum: Implications of Gene Loss

(Click on the front page image to download the full article) Abstract: We sequenced and analyzed the genome of the Midichloria humanum, a ubiquitous intracellular symbiont, in 34 human subjects covering a range of population sizes from 1,000 to over 14,000 midichlorians per human cell. Midichlorians mediate the relationship between their human hosts and the Force, which confers exceptional physical and cognitive abilities on hosts with per-cell midichlorian populations (‘midichlorian count,’ mdc) larger than 10,000. Although, quantitatively, the genome of M. humanum is more extensively degraded than those of closely related Rickettsia species, midichlorians retained many intact genes involved in…