Abstract
Mycobacterium leprae is an intracellular obligate parasitic organism belonging to genus Mycobacterium within the family Mycobacteriaceae in the order Actinomycetales. It is a slow-growing bacillus, an acid-fast, Gram-positive, straight or slightly curved, rod-shaped organism, about 1–8 µm long with diameter of 0.3–0.6 µm with parallel sides and rounded ends. It has been defined as unencapsulated but is now known to have a capsule-like structure. The genome of M. leprae counts 3,268,203 base pairs (bp), but only half of this consists of functional genes.
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© 2012 Springer-Verlag Italia
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Clapasson, A., Canata, S. (2012). Microbiology. In: Nunzi, E., Massone, C. (eds) Leprosy. Springer, Milano. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-2376-5_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-2376-5_2
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