Genome rearrangements and selection in multi-chromosome bacteria Burkholderia spp

Insights into group-specific pattern of secondary metabolite gene cluster in Burkholderia genus

Burkholderia is a versatile strain that has expanded into several genera. It has been steadily reported that the genome features of Burkholderia exhibit activities ranging from plant growth promotion to pathogenicity across various isolation areas. The objective of this study was to investigate the secondary metabolite patterns of 366 Burkholderia species through comparative genomics. Samples were selected based on assembly quality assessment and similarity below 80% in average nucleotide identity. Duplicate samples were excluded. Samples were divided into two groups using FastANI analysis. Group A included B. pseudomallei complex. Group B included B. cepacia complex. The limitations of MLST were proposed. The detection of genes was performed, including environmental and virulence-related genes. In the pan-genome analysis, each complex possessed a similar pattern of cluster for orthologous groups. Group A (n = 185) had 14,066 cloud genes, 2,465 shell genes, 682 soft-core genes, and 2,553 strict-core genes. Group B (n = 181) had 39,867 cloud genes, 4,986 shell genes, 324 soft-core genes, 222 core genes, and 2,949 strict-core genes. AntiSMASH was employed to analyze the biosynthetic gene cluster (BGC). The results were then utilized for network analysis using BiG-SCAPE and CORASON. Principal component analysis was conducted and a table was constructed using the results obtained from antiSMASH. The results were divided into Group A and Group B. We expected the various species to show similar patterns of secondary metabolite gene clusters. For in-depth analysis, a network analysis of secondary metabolite gene clusters was conducted, exemplified by BiG-SCAPE analysis. Depending on the species and complex, Burkholderia possessed several kinds of siderophore. Among them, ornibactin was possessed in most Burkholderia and was clustered into 4,062 clans. There was a similar pattern of gene clusters depending on the species. NRPS_04014 belonged to siderophore BGCs including ornibactin and indigoidine. However, it was observed that each family included a similar species. This suggests that, besides siderophores being species-specific, the ornibactin gene cluster itself might also be species-specific. The results suggest that siderophores are associated with environmental adaptation, possessing a similar pattern of siderophore gene clusters among species, which could provide another perspective on species-specific environmental adaptation mechanisms.

Influence of genomic variations on glanders serodiagnostic antigens using integrative genomic and transcriptomic approaches

Glanders is a highly contagious and life-threatening zoonotic disease caused by Burkholderia mallei (B. mallei). Without an effective vaccine or treatment, early diagnosis has been regarded as the most effective method to prevent glanders transmission. Currently, the diagnosis of glanders is heavily reliant on serological tests. However, given that markedly different host immune responses can be elicited by genetically different strains of the same bacterial species, infection by B. mallei, whose genome is unstable and plastic, may result in various immune responses. This variability can make the serodiagnosis of glanders challenging. Therefore, there is a need for a comprehensive understanding and assessment of how B. mallei genomic variations impact the appropriateness of specific target antigens for glanders serodiagnosis. In this study, we investigated how genomic variations in the B. mallei genome affect gene content (gene presence/absence) and expression, with a special focus on antigens used or potentially used in serodiagnosis. In all the genome sequences of B. mallei isolates available in NCBI's RefSeq database (accessed in July 2023) and in-house sequenced samples, extensive small and large variations were observed when compared to the type strain ATCC 23344. Further pan-genome analysis of those assemblies revealed variations of gene content among all available genomes of B. mallei. Specifically, differences in gene content ranging from 31 to 715 genes with an average of 334 gene presence-absence variations were found in strains with complete or chromosome-level genome assemblies, using the ATCC 23344 strain as a reference. The affected genes included some encoded proteins used as serodiagnostic antigens, which were lost due mainly to structural variations. Additionally, a transcriptomic analysis was performed using the type strain ATCC 23344 and strain Zagreb which has been widely utilized to produce glanders antigens. In total, 388 significant differentially expressed genes were identified between these two strains, including genes related to bacterial pathogenesis and virulence, some of which were associated with genomic variations, particularly structural variations. To our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive study to uncover the impacts of genetic variations of B. mallei on its gene content and expression. These differences would have significant impacts on host innate and adaptive immunity, including antibody production, during infection. This study provides novel insights into B. mallei genetic variants, knowledge which will help to improve glanders serodiagnosis.

Examination of Large Chromosomal Inversions in the Genome of Erwinia amylovora Strains Reveals Worldwide Distribution and North America-Specific Types

Erwinia amylovora is a relatively homogeneous species with low genetic diversity at the nucleotide level. However, phenotypic differences and genomic structural variations among E. amylovora strains have been documented. In this study, we identified 10 large chromosomal inversion (LCI) types in the Spiraeoideae-infecting (SI) E. amylovora strains by combining whole genome sequencing and PCR-based molecular markers. It was found that LCIs were mainly caused by homologous recombination events among seven rRNA operons (rrns) in SI E. amylovora strains. Although ribotyping results identified inter- and intra-variations in the internal transcribed spacer (ITS1 and ITS2) regions among rrns, LCIs tend to occur between rrns transcribed in the opposite directions and with the same tRNA content (tRNA-Glu or tRNA-Ile/Ala) in ITS1. Based on the LCI types, physical/estimated replichore imbalance (PRI/ERI) was examined and calculated. Among the 117 SI strains evaluated, the LCI types of Ea1189, CFBP1430, and Ea273 were the most common, with ERI values at 1.31, 7.87, and 4.47°, respectively. These three LCI types had worldwide distribution, whereas the remaining seven LCI types were restricted to North America (or certain regions of the United States). Our results indicated ongoing chromosomal recombination events in the SI E. amylovora population and showed that LCI events are mostly symmetrical, keeping the ERI less than 15°. These findings provide initial evidence about the prevalence of certain LCI types in E. amylovora strains, how LCI occurs, and its potential evolutionary advantage and history, which might help track the movement of the pathogen.

Gram-negative bacteria resist antimicrobial agents by a DzrR-mediated envelope stress response

BACKGROUND

Envelope stress responses (ESRs) are critical for adaptive resistance of Gram-negative bacteria to envelope-targeting antimicrobial agents. However, ESRs are poorly defined in a large number of well-known plant and human pathogens. Dickeya oryzae can withstand a high level of self-produced envelope-targeting antimicrobial agents zeamines through a zeamine-stimulated RND efflux pump DesABC. Here, we unraveled the mechanism of D. oryzae response to zeamines and determined the distribution and function of this novel ESR in a variety of important plant and human pathogens.

RESULTS

In this study, we documented that a two-component system regulator DzrR of D. oryzae EC1 mediates ESR in the presence of envelope-targeting antimicrobial agents. DzrR was found modulating bacterial response and resistance to zeamines through inducing the expression of RND efflux pump DesABC, which is likely independent on DzrR phosphorylation. In addition, DzrR could also mediate bacterial responses to structurally divergent envelope-targeting antimicrobial agents, including chlorhexidine and chlorpromazine. Significantly, the DzrR-mediated response was independent on the five canonical ESRs. We further presented evidence that the DzrR-mediated response is conserved in the bacterial species of Dickeya, Ralstonia, and Burkholderia, showing that a distantly located DzrR homolog is the previously undetermined regulator of RND-8 efflux pump for chlorhexidine resistance in B. cenocepacia.

CONCLUSIONS

Taken together, the findings from this study depict a new widely distributed Gram-negative ESR mechanism and present a valid target and useful clues to combat antimicrobial resistance.

Genetic diversity and spatial distribution of Burkholderia mallei by core genome-based multilocus sequence typing analysis

Burkholderia mallei is the etiological agent of glanders, a highly contagious and often fatal disease in equids. Due to the high genetic clonality of B. mallei, high-resolution typing assays are necessary to differentiate between individual strains. Here we report on the development and validation of a robust and reproducible core genome-based Multi Locus Sequence Typing Assay (cgMLST) for B. mallei, which is based on 3328 gene targets and enables high-resolution typing at the strain level. The assay was validated using a set of 120 B. mallei genomes from public databases and 23 newly sequenced outbreak strains from in-house strain collections. In this cgMLST analysis, strains from different geographic regions were clearly distinguished by at least 70 allele differences, allowing spatial clustering while closely related and epidemiologically related strains were separated by only zero to three alleles. Neither the different sequencing technologies nor the assembly strategies had an influence on the cgMLST results. The developed cgMLST is highly robust, reproducible and can be used for outbreak investigations, source tracking and molecular characterization of new B. mallei isolates.

Pangenome inventory of Burkholderia sensu lato, Burkholderia sensu stricto, and the Burkholderia cepacia complex reveals the uniqueness of Burkholderia catarinensis

Here the pangenome analysis of Burkholderia sensu lato (s.l.) was performed for the first time, together with an updated analysis of the pangenome of Burkholderia sensu stricto, and Burkholderia cepacia complex (Bcc) focusing on the Bcc B. catarinensis specific features of its re-sequenced genome. The pangenome of Burkholderia s.l., Burkholderia s.s., and of the Bcc are open, composed of more than 96% of accessory genes, and more than 62% of unknown genes. Functional annotations showed that secondary metabolism genes belong to the variable portion of genomes, which might explain their production of several compounds with varied bioactivities. Taken together, this work shows the great variability and uniqueness of these genomes and reveals an underexplored unknown potential in poorly characterized genes. Regarding B. catarinensis 89^T, its genome harbors genes related to hydrolases production and plant growth promotion. This draft genome will be valuable for further investigation of its biotechnological potentials.

PaReBrick: PArallel REarrangements and BReaks identification toolkit

MOTIVATION

High plasticity of bacterial genomes is provided by numerous mechanisms including horizontal gene transfer and recombination via numerous flanking repeats. Genome rearrangements such as inversions, deletions, insertions and duplications may independently occur in different strains, providing parallel adaptation or phenotypic diversity. Specifically, such rearrangements might be responsible for virulence, antibiotic resistance and antigenic variation. However, identification of such events requires laborious manual inspection and verification of phyletic pattern consistency.

RESULTS

Here, we define the term 'parallel rearrangements' as events that occur independently in phylogenetically distant bacterial strains and present a formalization of the problem of parallel rearrangements calling. We implement an algorithmic solution for the identification of parallel rearrangements in bacterial populations as a tool PaReBrick. The tool takes a collection of strains represented as a sequence of oriented synteny blocks and a phylogenetic tree as input data. It identifies rearrangements, tests them for consistency with a tree, and sorts the events by their parallelism score. The tool provides diagrams of the neighbors for each block of interest, allowing the detection of horizontally transferred blocks or their extra copies and the inversions in which copied blocks are involved. We demonstrated PaReBrick's efficiency and accuracy and showed its potential to detect genome rearrangements responsible for pathogenicity and adaptation in bacterial genomes.

AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION

PaReBrick is written in Python and is available on GitHub: https://github.com/ctlab/parallel-rearrangements.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Salmonella Paratyphi Infection: Use of Nanopore Sequencing as a Vivid Alternative for the Identification of Invading Bacteria

In our study we present an overview of the use of Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) sequencing technology on the background of Enteric fever. Unlike traditional methods (e.g., qPCR, serological tests), the nanopore sequencing technology enables virtually real-time data generation and highly accurate pathogen identification and characterization. Blood cultures were obtained from a 48-year-old female patient suffering from a high fever, headache and diarrhea. Nevertheless, both the initial serological tests and stool culture appeared to be negative. Therefore, the bacterial isolate from blood culture was used for nanopore sequencing (ONT). This technique in combination with subsequent bioinformatic analyses allowed for prompt identification of the disease-causative agent as Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Paratyphi A. The National Reference Laboratory for Salmonella (NIPH) independently reported this isolate also as serovar Paratyphi A on the basis of results of biochemical and agglutination tests. Therefore, our results are in concordance with certified standards. Furthermore, the data enabled us to assess some basic questions concerning the comparative genomics, i.e., to describe whether the isolated strain differs from the formerly published ones or not. Quite surprisingly, these results indicate that we have detected a novel and so far, unknown variety of this bacteria.

High Rates of Genome Rearrangements and Pathogenicity of Shigella spp

Shigella are pathogens originating within the Escherichia lineage but frequently classified as a separate genus. Shigella genomes contain numerous insertion sequences (ISs) that lead to pseudogenisation of affected genes and an increase of non-homologous recombination. Here, we study 414 genomes of E. coli and Shigella strains to assess the contribution of genomic rearrangements to Shigella evolution. We found that Shigella experienced exceptionally high rates of intragenomic rearrangements and had a decreased rate of homologous recombination compared to pathogenic and non-pathogenic E. coli. The high rearrangement rate resulted in independent disruption of syntenic regions and parallel rearrangements in different Shigella lineages. Specifically, we identified two types of chromosomally encoded E3 ubiquitin-protein ligases acquired independently by all Shigella strains that also showed a high level of sequence conservation in the promoter and further in the 5′-intergenic region. In the only available enteroinvasive E. coli (EIEC) strain, which is a pathogenic E. coli with a phenotype intermediate between Shigella and non-pathogenic E. coli, we found a rate of genome rearrangements comparable to those in other E. coli and no functional copies of the two Shigella-specific E3 ubiquitin ligases. These data indicate that the accumulation of ISs influenced many aspects of genome evolution and played an important role in the evolution of intracellular pathogens. Our research demonstrates the power of comparative genomics-based on synteny block composition and an important role of non-coding regions in the evolution of genomic islands.

A Phylogeny-Informed Proteomics Approach for Species Identification within the Burkholderia cepacia Complex

Ancestral genetic exchange between members of many important bacterial pathogen groups has resulted in phylogenetic relationships better described as networks than as bifurcating trees. In certain cases, these reticulated phylogenies have resulted in phenotypic and molecular overlap that challenges the construction of practical approaches for species identification in the clinical microbiology laboratory. Burkholderia cepacia complex (Bcc), a betaproteobacteria species group responsible for significant morbidity in persons with cystic fibrosis and chronic granulomatous disease, represents one such group where network-structured phylogeny has hampered the development of diagnostic methods for species-level discrimination. Here, we present a phylogeny-informed proteomics approach to facilitate diagnostic classification of pathogen groups with reticulated phylogenies, using Bcc as an example. Starting with a set of more than 800 Bcc and Burkholderia gladioli whole-genome assemblies, we constructed phylogenies with explicit representation of inferred interspecies recombination. Sixteen highly discriminatory peptides were chosen to distinguish B. cepacia, Burkholderia cenocepacia, Burkholderia multivorans, and B. gladioli and multiplexed into a single, rapid liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry multiple reaction monitoring (LC-MS/MS MRM) assay. Testing of a blinded set of isolates containing these four Burkholderia species demonstrated 50/50 correct automatic negative calls (100% accuracy with a 95% confidence interval [CI] of 92.9 to 100%), and 70/70 correct automatic species-level positive identifications (100% accuracy with 95% CI 94.9 to 100%) after accounting for a single initial incorrect identification due to a preanalytic error, correctly identified on retesting. The approach to analysis described here is applicable to other pathogen groups for which development of diagnostic classification methods is complicated by interspecies recombination.

Complete Genome Sequence of Burkholderia contaminans SK875, Isolated from the Respiratory Tract of a Pig in the Republic of Korea

Burkholderia contaminans SK875 was isolated from the respiratory tract of a pig in the Republic of Korea. Here, we report the genome of B. contaminans SK875, which consists of three circular chromosomes and one plasmid of 8,596,045 bp with 7,727 genes.

Characterization of Burkholderia cepacia Complex Core Genome and the Underlying Recombination and Positive Selection

Recombination and positive selection are two key factors that play a vital role in pathogenic microorganisms’ population adaptation and diversification. The Burkholderia cepacia complex (Bcc) represents bacterial species with high similarity, which can cause severe infections among cases suffering from the chronic granulomatous disorder and cystic fibrosis (CF). At present, no genome-wide study has been carried out focusing on investigating the core genome of Bcc associated with the two evolutionary forces. The general characteristics of the core genome of Bcc species remain scarce as well. In this study, we explored the core orthologous genes of 116 Bcc strains using comparative genomic analysis and studied the two adaptive evolutionary forces: recombination and positive selection. We estimated 1005 orthogroups consisting entirely of single copy genes. These single copy orthologous genes in some Cluster of Orthologous Groups (COG) categories showed significant differences in the comparison of several evolutionary properties, and the encoding proteins were relatively simple and compact. Our findings showed that 5.8% of the core orthologous genes strongly supported recombination; in the meantime, 1.1% supported positive selection. We found that genes involved in protein synthesis as well as material transport and metabolism are favored by selection pressure. More importantly, homologous recombination contributed more genetic variation to a large number of genes and largely maintained the genetic cohesion in Bcc. This high level of recombination between Bcc species blurs their taxonomic boundaries, which leads Bcc species to be difficult or impossible to distinguish phenotypically and genotypically.

Versatile and Dynamic Symbioses Between Insects and Burkholderia Bacteria

Symbiotic associations with microorganisms represent major sources of ecological and evolutionary innovations in insects. Multiple insect taxa engage in symbioses with bacteria of the genus Burkholderia, a diverse group that is widespread across different environments and whose members can be mutualistic or pathogenic to plants, fungi, and animals. Burkholderia symbionts provide nutritional benefits and resistance against insecticides to stinkbugs, defend Lagria beetle eggs against pathogenic fungi, and may be involved in nitrogen metabolism in ants. In contrast to many other insect symbioses, the known associations with Burkholderia are characterized by environmental symbiont acquisition or mixed-mode transmission, resulting in interesting ecological and evolutionary dynamics of symbiont strain composition. Insect-Burkholderia symbioses present valuable model systems from which to derive insights into general principles governing symbiotic interactions because they are often experimentally and genetically tractable and span a large fraction of the diversity of functions, localizations, and transmission routes represented in insect symbioses.

Chlamydia pan-genomic analysis reveals balance between host adaptation and selective pressure to genome reduction

Background

Chlamydia are ancient intracellular pathogens with reduced, though strikingly conserved genome. Despite their parasitic lifestyle and isolated intracellular environment, these bacteria managed to avoid accumulation of deleterious mutations leading to subsequent genome degradation characteristic for many parasitic bacteria.

Results

We report pan-genomic analysis of sixteen species from genus Chlamydia including identification and functional annotation of orthologous genes, and characterization of gene gains, losses, and rearrangements. We demonstrate the overall genome stability of these bacteria as indicated by a large fraction of common genes with conserved genomic locations. On the other hand, extreme evolvability is confined to several paralogous gene families such as polymorphic membrane proteins and phospholipase D, and likely is caused by the pressure from the host immune system.

Conclusions

This combination of a large, conserved core genome and a small, evolvable periphery likely reflect the balance between the selective pressure towards genome reduction and the need to adapt to escape from the host immunity.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s12864-019-6059-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.