Talk:Rickettsia

Latest comment: 2 years ago by Zlover0407 in topic A minor citation issue

Untitled edit

The first paragraph would make no sense to majority of the population; I love it when people use big, long, fancy words just because they can! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.23.48.107 (talk) 01:24, 1 October 2010 (UTC)Reply


pre-2006 comments edit

Vmart added various details. I've removed a few passages, though, because they were based on older sources. Notably:

The Ricketsiales order, contrary to the popular belief, does not contain human pathogens exclusively. In fact, majority of organisms in the order (over 40 recognized) are pathogenic in Arthropoda only. The human pathongens are concentrated in Rickettsia and Coxiella genus groups of the Rickettsiaceae family.

There was a time when the Rickettsiales included most obligate endosymbiotic bacteria. They do not any more, and in particular Coxiella belongs to a different group (Legionellales). At the same time, the Holosporaceae have been added. So I'm not sure how much of this is accurate.

Rickettsia are generally regarded as microrganisms positioned somewhere in between viruses and real bacteria.

They used to be, but with the advent of molecular phylogeny, I'm pretty sure this is no longer true. Josh



I would definitely agree to the remark about sources :) (esp. considering a lot of them are Soviet works, some of them closed at the publication time).

Since I am pretty new to this particular community, I might be asking idiotic questions like the one below:

Does there exist a reference classification for Bacteria every material here on Wikipedia is checked against?

In case there does not, I suggest using Bergey's outline from Bergey's Manual Trust (the document I just got for myself dates back to 2004). I will from now on check anything related to prokaryotes' taxonometry against it.

As to the last remarks, representatives of the R. order _ARE_ intracellular parasitic organisms with extremaly simplistic yet highly specialized interior design, which is why they _USED_ to be compared to viruses (how about changing "are" in the original text to "were"?). If you take a look at 2004 Bergey's outline for Rickettsiales, (pp 39-41 in the printed version) - it would almost always say 'no culture isolated' - which kind of suggests highly specific intracellular (or intra-nuclear, as in case with certain holospora) parasitism.

Hope my edits are not interpreted as 'undersirable' -- Vmart


Absolutely not, you added a lot of good detail to the page, and I'll return the virus line, changed as suggested. The classification system we've been using is based on the most recent Bergey's Manual, so if you actually have a copy, there's a lot you could probably add. By the way, all the described Rickettsiales are obligate parasites, but they also seem to include a bunch of environmental samples that I've had trouble finding details on. Josh


I wish I just had a little more time....The Pelagibacter you are refering to is not in my (2004) "talmud" on prokaryotes, and the classifications like the one on [[1]] where the Pelagibacter is said to be related to rickettsia obviously have a problem because it does not specify a family (one of Rickettsiaceae, Anaplasmataceae or Holosporaceae) to place the organism. The families above perfectly fit the definition of "intracellular parasitic organisms". If rickettsia are used just a good placeholder group for every unclassified protobacterium out there due to highly pleomorphic nature, than we should probably expect new changes, as with C. burnetti (moved out of rickettsia). The current "talmud" makes perfect sence (at least as far as Rickettsiales order is concerned). -- Vmart


Pages like the one you mentioned are mirrors of ours, which lists order Rickettsiales because I added it. As I recall, genetic studies did place it in the order but didn't affiliate it with any family. The canonical list don't mention samples because they haven't been formally described, but databases like NCBI and moore confirm the placement for SAR11. This paper gives examples of some others, which are obligate endosymbionts, but I think there were some others that were free-living, which would be worth noting because they'd affect the phenotypic diversity of the group. At one point I had a good on-line reference including them, but I was stupid enough not to write it down, and haven't been able to find one lately. Josh

Cecil Jadin edit

Can someone PLEASE put in that one of the leading authorities on this illness is 'Cecil Jadin' from South Africa please? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.228.193.30 (talkcontribs)

Because some of us might like to know whose the best for treatment for this illness.......idiot.......

One note- it is Cecile Jadin, not Cecil. While she has published papers and has authored one of the most effective treatment protocols when concerning rickettsia infections, she does not specifically treat people. And if we were to mention her, we would also have to list the other "leading authorities" on rickettsial infections like Dr. David Walker. Dr. Jadin is an amazing woman, but to list her here would be superfluous. Areyoucontagious 21:17, 5 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

In the Past? edit

In the past they were regarded as microorganisms positioned somewhere between viruses and true bacteria. 

This line is neither followed nor preceeded by an explanation of how they are regarded differently now. It should either be edited so that it no longer implies this to have changed, or an explanation added. --Kaz 18:09, 8 June 2006 (UTC)Reply

The "Naming" section contradicts Rickets edit

In Rickets, it's stated that the word "rickets" comes from Old English "wrickken". In the Naming section of this article, "rickets" is claimed to come from Greek "hrake". Which one is correct? --NetRolller 3D 23:05, 21 September 2008 (UTC)Reply

I just removed the "hrake" part, since it is irrelevant to this article. Looks like the Rickets article now covers the Greek origin. Maghnus (talk) 15:04, 15 October 2008 (UTC)Reply

Uneditable diagram edit

Noticed when trying to correct a red link that your diagram seems to be untouchable. Please could you correct.andycjp (talk) 08:19, 5 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

External links modified edit

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Fixing Grammatical Errors and Improving Flow edit

I think that the article is a bit disjointed. Moreover, I have noticed numerous grammatical errors. I have fixed one of them that occurred in the first paragraph of the Lead, but more work needs to be done. I think that if the article becomes more polished, it will be easier to add to. --Olsen-in-HD (talk) 02:45, 13 September 2019 (UTC)Reply

A minor citation issue edit

In the first paragraph, it goes "Rickettsia is a genus of nonmotile, gram-negative, nonspore-forming, highly pleomorphic bacteria that may occur in the forms of cocci (0.1 μm in diameter), bacilli (1–4 μm long), or threads (up to about 10 μm long)." This description is not supported by any reliable resources yet. I've looked up some information on the Net and find a few related sources that may help. But I'm not sure whether they are good sources of information, so I need someone to check the following links for me.

1. RICKETTSIA, CHLAMYDIA, MYCOPLASMA (See the section "Rickettsia")
2. Bionity
3. Current data on the polymorphism of Rickettsia prowazekii and burneti in cultured cells (Only the abstract is available, other parts of the paper were in Russian)

Thanks a million! Zlover0407 (talk) 13:18, 12 February 2022 (UTC)Reply