Toxoplasma gondii ME49 Assembly and Gene Annotation

About the Toxoplasma gondii genome

Toxoplasma gondii is a parasitic protist, belonging to the phylum Apicomplexa. It is carried by cats and few warm blooded animals including humans. Up to 20 to 30% of the world's population is estimated to be chronically infected with the apicomplexan parasite. It causes the Toxoplasmosis which is usually minor and self-limiting disease but can have serious or even fatal effects during pregnancy or in an immunocompromised human or cat.

Assembly

The T. gondii genome is ~70 Mb in size and consists of 14 chromosomes. The T. gondii genome, like many other apicomplexan parasites possess a nonphotosynthetic plastid, referred to as the apicoplast. The assembly is also available from the EMBL/Genbank/DDBJ databases under the accession GCA_000006565.2

Annotation

Annotation of the T. gondii genome has been derived from ToxoDB (release 36).

References

1. ToxoDB: accessing the Toxoplasma gondii genome.
   Kissinger JC, Gajria B, Li L, Paulsen IT, Roos DS. 2003. Nucleic Acids Res.. 31:234-236.