It has a spiral shape and bipolar, single, sheathed flagellum, and was first isolated from the livers of mice with active, chronic hepatitis. The bacteria also colonized the cecal and colonicmucosae of mice. It elicits persistent hepatitis in mice. It has also been associated with colorectal cancer and other diseases.[2][3] Its genome has been sequenced and is 1,799,146 bases long with 1,875 coding sequences.[4]
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