Actual aspects of rickettsial biodiversity’s study

Abstract

The paper presents an analysis of development and current status of the doctrine about biodiversity of rickettsiae. Progress in the study of Rickettsia is associated with improved methods for their detection and isolation – using of biotechnological systems (cultivation in the experimental lines of ticks-sensitive lines of eukaryotic cells) in combination with methods of genotyping and classical ricketsial methods. The development of new methodological approaches to the study of tick-borne rickettsiae and other alpha-proteobacteria led to an important revision of ideas about genetic diversity, heterogeneity of antigenic and biological characteristics, ecology and contribution to the infectious pathology of various representatives of the order Rickettsiales in Russia and Kazakhstan.