Rickettsia japonica sp. nov., the Etiological Agent of Spotted Fever Group Rickettsiosis in Japan Uchida, Takahiro and Uchiyama, Tsuneo and Kumano, Keiko and Walker, David H.,, 42, 303-305 (1992), doi = https://doi.org/10.1099/00207713-42-2-303, publicationName = Microbiology Society, issn = 1466-5026, abstract= We propose the name Rickettsia japonica sp. nov. (with type strain YH [= ATCC VR-1363]) for a serologically specific species of spotted fever group rickettsiae that are pathogenic for humans (J. Infect. Dis. 159:1122-1126, 1989; J. Clin. Microbiol. 28:1177-1180, 1990). The biologic and genomic characteristics of the organism (G+C content, 31.2 ± 0.7 mol%) are essentially the same as those of other pathogenic spotted fever group rickettsiae, although the R. japonica isolates cause a persistent infection in Vero cells for many subcultures., language=, type=