Bacterium
Francisella tularensis
Tularemia, rabbit/tick zoonosis, cysteine need
fran-sih-SEL-uh too-lah-REN-sis
High-yield clue
Tularemia ('rabbit fever') is a fastidious, cysteine-requiring intracellular coccobacillus spread by ticks, deerflies, and rabbit contact.
Overview
A highly infectious, fastidious Gram-negative coccobacillus that is a facultative intracellular pathogen and the cause of tularemia, a high-yield zoonotic select-agent study organism.
Classification
- Gram-negative
- Coccobacillus
- Francisellaceae
- Aerobe
- Facultative intracellular
Lab & identification clues
- Cysteine-requiring growth vocabulary
- Fastidious, slow-growing concept
- Very low infectious dose vocabulary
- Serology-based identification concept
Associations
- Ticks, deerflies, and rabbit/rodent contact vocabulary
- Ulceroglandular presentation vocabulary
- Category A select-agent and aerosol-risk framing
Commonly confused with
- Yersinia pestis
- Brucella species
Your notes
Original student-study summary. Sources checked: OpenStax Microbiology 2e, NCBI Bookshelf Medical Microbiology, and CDC topic pages where applicable; reviewed 2026-06. Educational only; no diagnosis, treatment, dosing, or specimen-handling guidance.