Coxiella burnetii is an obligate intracellular bacterial pathogen, and is the causative agent of Q fever. The genus Coxiella is morphologically similar to Rickettsia, but with a variety of genetic and physiological differences. C. burnetii is a small Gram-negative, coccobacillary bacterium that is highly resistant to environmental stresses such as high temperature, osmotic pressure, and ultraviolet light. These characteristics are attributed to a small cell variant form of the organism that is part of a biphasic developmental cycle, including a more metabolically and replicatively active large cell variant form. It can survive standard disinfectants, and is resistant to many other environmental changes like those presented in the phagolysosome.
Coxiella burnetii
Immunohistochemical detection of C. burnetii in resected cardiac valve of a 60-year-old man with Q fever endocarditis, Cayenne, French Guiana, monoclonal antibody against C. burnetii and hematoxylin were used for staining: Original magnification ×50
C. burnetii, the causative agent of Q fever
Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet, usually known as Macfarlane or Mac Burnet, was an Australian virologist known for his contributions to immunology. He won a Nobel Prize in 1960 for predicting acquired immune tolerance and he developed the theory of clonal selection.
Macfarlane Burnet
Frank Macfarlane Burnet with wife and daughters in Stockholm in 1960
Coxiella burnetii, the causative agent of Q fever, was named after Burnet.
Burnet working in the laboratory in 1945