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Ye L, Liu X, Ni Y, Xu Y, Zheng Z, Chen K, Hu Q, Tan L, Guo Z, Wai CK, Chan EWC, Li R, Chen S. Comprehensive genomic and plasmid characterization of multidrug-resistant bacterial strains by R10.4.1 nanopore sequencing. Microbiol Res 2024; 283:127666. [PMID: 38460283 DOI: 10.1016/j.micres.2024.127666] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/25/2023] [Revised: 01/17/2024] [Accepted: 02/25/2024] [Indexed: 03/11/2024]
Abstract
The escalating prevalence of multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria pose a significant public health threat. Understanding the genomic features and deciphering the antibiotic resistance profiles of these pathogens is crucial for development of effective surveillance and treatment strategies. In this study, we employed the R10.4.1 nanopore sequencing technology, specifically through the use of the MinION platform, to analyze eight MDR bacterial strains originating from clinical, ecological and food sources. A single 72-hour sequencing run could yield approximately 12 million reads which covered a total of 34 gigabases (Gbp). The nanopore R10.4.1 data was processed using the Flye assembler, successfully assembling the genomes of eight bacterial strains and their 18 plasmids. Notably, the assemblies generated solely from R10.4.1 nanopore data closely matched those from next-generation sequencing data. Diverse antibiotic resistance patterns and specific resistance genes in the test strains were identified. Hospital strains that exhibited multidrug resistance were found to harbor various resistance genes that encode efflux pumps and extended-spectrum β-lactamases. Environmental and food sources were found to display resistance profiles in a species-specific manner. The composition of structurally complex plasmids in the test strains could also be revealed by analysis of nanopore long reads, which also suggested evidence of horizontal transfer of plasmids between different bacterial species. These findings provide valuable insights into the genetic characteristics of MDR bacteria and demonstrating the practicality of nanopore sequencing technology for detecting of resistance elements in bacterial pathogens.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lianwei Ye
- Department of Infectious Diseases and Public Health, Jockey Club College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR China; State Key Lab of Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery and the Department of Food Science and Nutrition, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR China
| | - Xudong Liu
- Department of Infectious Diseases and Public Health, Jockey Club College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR China
| | - Ying Ni
- Department of Biomedical Sciences and Tung Biomedical Sciences Centre, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong, SAR China; Department of Precision Diagnostic and Therapeutic Technology, City University of Hong Kong Shenzhen Futian Research Institute, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
| | - Yating Xu
- Department of Infectious Diseases and Public Health, Jockey Club College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR China; State Key Lab of Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery and the Department of Food Science and Nutrition, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR China
| | - Zhiwei Zheng
- State Key Lab of Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery and the Department of Food Science and Nutrition, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR China; Shenzhen Key Lab for Biological Safety Control, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Shenzhen Research Institute, Shenzhen, China
| | - Kaichao Chen
- State Key Lab of Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery and the Department of Food Science and Nutrition, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR China
| | - Qiao Hu
- Department of Infectious Diseases and Public Health, Jockey Club College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR China; State Key Lab of Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery and the Department of Food Science and Nutrition, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR China
| | - Lu Tan
- Department of Infectious Diseases and Public Health, Jockey Club College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR China
| | - Zhihao Guo
- Department of Infectious Diseases and Public Health, Jockey Club College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR China
| | - Chan Kwan Wai
- State Key Lab of Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery and the Department of Food Science and Nutrition, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR China
| | - Edward Wai Chi Chan
- State Key Lab of Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery and the Department of Food Science and Nutrition, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR China
| | - Runsheng Li
- Department of Infectious Diseases and Public Health, Jockey Club College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR China; Department of Precision Diagnostic and Therapeutic Technology, City University of Hong Kong Shenzhen Futian Research Institute, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China.
| | - Sheng Chen
- State Key Lab of Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery and the Department of Food Science and Nutrition, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR China; Shenzhen Key Lab for Biological Safety Control, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Shenzhen Research Institute, Shenzhen, China; Animal Health Research Center, City University of Hong Kong Chengdu Research Institute, Chengdu, China.
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2
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Liu D, Zhou L, Zhang Z, Zhang Y, Wang Z, Li S, Zhu Y, Zheng H, Zhang Z, Tian Z. Epidemiological and Genomic analysis of Vibrio parahaemolyticus isolated from imported travelers at the port of Shanghai, China (2017-2019). BMC Microbiol 2024; 24:145. [PMID: 38671363 DOI: 10.1186/s12866-024-03303-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/02/2024] [Accepted: 04/12/2024] [Indexed: 04/28/2024] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Vibrio parahaemolyticus is the predominant etiological agent of seafood-associated foodborne illnesses on a global scale. It is essential to elucidate the mechanisms by which this pathogen disseminates. Given the existing research predominantly concentrates on localized outbreaks, there is a pressing necessity for a comprehensive investigation to capture strains of V. parahaemolyticus cross borders. RESULTS This study examined the frequency and genetic attributes of imported V. parahaemolyticus strains among travelers entering Shanghai Port, China, between 2017 and 2019.Through the collection of 21 strains from diverse countries and regions, Southeast Asia was pinpointed as a significant source for the emergence of V. parahaemolyticus. Phylogenetic analysis revealed clear delineation between strains originating from human and environmental sources, emphasizing that underlying genome data of foodborne pathogens is essential for environmental monitoring, food safety and early diagnosis of diseases. Furthermore, our study identified the presence of virulence genes (tdh and tlh) and approximately 120 antibiotic resistance-related genes in the majority of isolates, highlighting their crucial involvement in the pathogenesis of V. parahaemolyticus. CONCLUSIONS This research enhanced our comprehension of the worldwide transmission of V. parahaemolyticus and its antimicrobial resistance patterns. The findings have important implications for public health interventions and antimicrobial stewardship strategies, underscoring the necessity for epidemiological surveillance of pathogen at international travel hubs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Danlei Liu
- Shanghai International Travel Healthcare Center, Shanghai Customs District P. R. China, Shanghai, 200136, China
- Shanghai-MOST Key Laboratory of Health and Disease Genomics, NHC Key Lab of Reproduction Regulation, Shanghai Institute for Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Technologies, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200237, China
| | - Lei Zhou
- Shanghai-MOST Key Laboratory of Health and Disease Genomics, NHC Key Lab of Reproduction Regulation, Shanghai Institute for Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Technologies, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200237, China
| | - Zilei Zhang
- Inspection and Quarantine Technology Communication Department, Shanghai Customs College, Shanghai, 200136, China
| | - Ying Zhang
- State Key Laboratory of Applied Microbiology Southern China, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Microbial Culture Collection and Application, Guangdong Open Laboratory of Applied Microbiology, Guangdong Institute of Microbiology, Guangzhou, 510070, China
| | - Zhiyi Wang
- Shanghai International Travel Healthcare Center, Shanghai Customs District P. R. China, Shanghai, 200136, China
| | - Shenwei Li
- Shanghai International Travel Healthcare Center, Shanghai Customs District P. R. China, Shanghai, 200136, China
| | - Yongqiang Zhu
- Shanghai-MOST Key Laboratory of Health and Disease Genomics, NHC Key Lab of Reproduction Regulation, Shanghai Institute for Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Technologies, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200237, China
| | - Huajun Zheng
- Shanghai-MOST Key Laboratory of Health and Disease Genomics, NHC Key Lab of Reproduction Regulation, Shanghai Institute for Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Technologies, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200237, China.
| | - Zilong Zhang
- Shanghai International Travel Healthcare Center, Shanghai Customs District P. R. China, Shanghai, 200136, China.
| | - Zhengan Tian
- Shanghai International Travel Healthcare Center, Shanghai Customs District P. R. China, Shanghai, 200136, China.
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Gawlitt S, Collins SP, Yu Y, Blackman SA, Barquist L, Beisel CL. Expanding the flexibility of base editing for high-throughput genetic screens in bacteria. Nucleic Acids Res 2024; 52:4079-4097. [PMID: 38499498 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkae174] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/12/2023] [Revised: 02/07/2024] [Accepted: 02/28/2024] [Indexed: 03/20/2024] Open
Abstract
Genome-wide screens have become powerful tools for elucidating genotype-to-phenotype relationships in bacteria. Of the varying techniques to achieve knockout and knockdown, CRISPR base editors are emerging as promising options. However, the limited number of available, efficient target sites hampers their use for high-throughput screening. Here, we make multiple advances to enable flexible base editing as part of high-throughput genetic screening in bacteria. We first co-opt the Streptococcus canis Cas9 that exhibits more flexible protospacer-adjacent motif recognition than the traditional Streptococcus pyogenes Cas9. We then expand beyond introducing premature stop codons by mutating start codons. Next, we derive guide design rules by applying machine learning to an essentiality screen conducted in Escherichia coli. Finally, we rescue poorly edited sites by combining base editing with Cas9-induced cleavage of unedited cells, thereby enriching for intended edits. The efficiency of this dual system was validated through a conditional essentiality screen based on growth in minimal media. Overall, expanding the scope of genome-wide knockout screens with base editors could further facilitate the investigation of new gene functions and interactions in bacteria.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sandra Gawlitt
- Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI), Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI), 97080 Würzburg, Germany
| | - Scott P Collins
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA
| | - Yanying Yu
- Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI), Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI), 97080 Würzburg, Germany
| | - Samuel A Blackman
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA
| | - Lars Barquist
- Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI), Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI), 97080 Würzburg, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, Ontario L5L 1C6, Canada
- Medical Faculty, University of Würzburg, 97080 Würzburg, Germany
| | - Chase L Beisel
- Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI), Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI), 97080 Würzburg, Germany
- Medical Faculty, University of Würzburg, 97080 Würzburg, Germany
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4
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Xie O, Zachreson C, Tonkin-Hill G, Price DJ, Lacey JA, Morris JM, McDonald MI, Bowen AC, Giffard PM, Currie BJ, Carapetis JR, Holt DC, Bentley SD, Davies MR, Tong SYC. Overlapping Streptococcus pyogenes and Streptococcus dysgalactiae subspecies equisimilis household transmission and mobile genetic element exchange. Nat Commun 2024; 15:3477. [PMID: 38658529 PMCID: PMC11043366 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-47816-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/12/2024] [Accepted: 04/12/2024] [Indexed: 04/26/2024] Open
Abstract
Streptococcus dysgalactiae subspecies equisimilis (SDSE) and Streptococcus pyogenes share skin and throat niches with extensive genomic homology and horizontal gene transfer (HGT) possibly underlying shared disease phenotypes. It is unknown if cross-species transmission interaction occurs. Here, we conduct a genomic analysis of a longitudinal household survey in remote Australian First Nations communities for patterns of cross-species transmission interaction and HGT. Collected from 4547 person-consultations, we analyse 294 SDSE and 315 S. pyogenes genomes. We find SDSE and S. pyogenes transmission intersects extensively among households and show that patterns of co-occurrence and transmission links are consistent with independent transmission without inter-species interference. We identify at least one of three near-identical cross-species mobile genetic elements (MGEs) carrying antimicrobial resistance or streptodornase virulence genes in 55 (19%) SDSE and 23 (7%) S. pyogenes isolates. These findings demonstrate co-circulation of both pathogens and HGT in communities with a high burden of streptococcal disease, supporting a need to integrate SDSE and S. pyogenes surveillance and control efforts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ouli Xie
- Department of Infectious Diseases, University of Melbourne at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
- Monash Infectious Diseases, Monash Health, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
| | - Cameron Zachreson
- School of Computing and Information Systems, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
| | | | - David J Price
- Department of Infectious Diseases, University of Melbourne at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
- Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
| | - Jake A Lacey
- Department of Infectious Diseases, University of Melbourne at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Melbourne at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
| | - Jacqueline M Morris
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Melbourne at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
| | - Malcolm I McDonald
- Division of Tropical Health and Medicine, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD, Australia
| | - Asha C Bowen
- Wesfarmers Centre for Vaccines and Infectious Diseases, Telethon Kids Institute, University of Western Australia and Perth Children's Hospital, Perth, WA, Australia
| | - Philip M Giffard
- Global and Tropical Health Division, Menzies School of Health Research, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, NT, Australia
- Faculty of Health, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, NT, Australia
| | - Bart J Currie
- Global and Tropical Health Division, Menzies School of Health Research, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, NT, Australia
- Infectious Diseases Department, Royal Darwin Hospital, Darwin, NT, Australia
| | - Jonathan R Carapetis
- Wesfarmers Centre for Vaccines and Infectious Diseases, Telethon Kids Institute, University of Western Australia and Perth Children's Hospital, Perth, WA, Australia
| | - Deborah C Holt
- Global and Tropical Health Division, Menzies School of Health Research, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, NT, Australia
| | | | - Mark R Davies
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Melbourne at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
| | - Steven Y C Tong
- Department of Infectious Diseases, University of Melbourne at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
- Victorian Infectious Diseases Service, The Royal Melbourne Hospital at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
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5
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Wu R, Payne M, Zhang L, Lan R. Uncovering the boundaries of Campylobacter species through large-scale phylogenetic and nucleotide identity analyses. mSystems 2024; 9:e0121823. [PMID: 38530055 PMCID: PMC11019964 DOI: 10.1128/msystems.01218-23] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/14/2023] [Accepted: 02/21/2024] [Indexed: 03/27/2024] Open
Abstract
Campylobacter species are typically helical shaped, Gram-negative, and non-spore-forming bacteria. Species in this genus include established foodborne and animal pathogens as well as emerging pathogens. The accumulation of genomic data from the Campylobacter genus has increased exponentially in recent years, accompanied by the discovery of putative new species. At present, the lack of a standardized species boundary complicates distinguishing established and novel species. We defined the Campylobacter genus core genome (500 loci) using publicly available Campylobacter complete genomes (n = 498) and constructed a core genome phylogeny using 2,193 publicly available Campylobacter genomes to examine inter-species diversity and species boundaries. Utilizing 8,440 Campylobacter genomes representing 33 species and 8 subspecies, we found species delineation based on an average nucleotide identity (ANI) cutoff of 94.2% is consistent with the core genome phylogeny. We identified 60 ANI genomic species that delineated Campylobacter species in concordance with previous comparative genetic studies. All pairwise ANI genomic species pairs had in silico DNA-DNA hybridization scores of less than 70%, supporting their delineation as separate species. We provide the tool Campylobacter Genomic Species typer (CampyGStyper) that assigns ANI genomic species to query genomes based on ANI similarities to medoid genomes from each ANI genomic species with an accuracy of 99.96%. The ANI genomic species definitions proposed here allow consistent species definition in the Campylobacter genus and will facilitate the detection of novel species in the future.IMPORTANCEIn recent years, Campylobacter has gained recognition as the leading cause of bacterial gastroenteritis worldwide, leading to a substantial rise in the collection of genomic data of the Campylobacter genus in public databases. Currently, a standardized Campylobacter species boundary at the genomic level is absent, leading to challenges in detecting emerging pathogens and defining putative novel species within this genus. We used a comprehensive representation of genomes of the Campylobacter genus to construct a core genome phylogenetic tree. Furthermore, we found an average nucleotide identity (ANI) of 94.2% as the optimal cutoff to define the Campylobacter species. Using this cutoff, we identified 60 ANI genomic species which provided a standardized species definition and nomenclature. Importantly, we have developed Campylobacter Genomic Species typer (CampyGStyper), which can robustly and accurately assign these ANI genomic species to Campylobacter genomes, thereby aiding pathogen surveillance and facilitating evolutionary and epidemiological studies of existing and emerging pathogens in the genus Campylobacter.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ruochen Wu
- School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
| | - Michael Payne
- School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
| | - Li Zhang
- School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
| | - Ruiting Lan
- School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
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Correa A, Shehreen S, Machado LC, Thesier J, Cunic L, Petassi M, Chu J, Kapili B, Jia Y, England K, Peters J. Novel mechanisms of diversity generation in Acinetobacter baumannii resistance islands driven by Tn7-like elements. Nucleic Acids Res 2024; 52:3180-3198. [PMID: 38407477 PMCID: PMC11014353 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkae129] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/26/2023] [Revised: 01/25/2024] [Accepted: 02/09/2024] [Indexed: 02/27/2024] Open
Abstract
Mobile genetic elements play an important role in the acquisition of antibiotic and biocide resistance, especially through the formation of resistance islands in bacterial chromosomes. We analyzed the contribution of Tn7-like transposons to island formation and diversification in the nosocomial pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii and identified four separate families that recognize different integration sites. One integration site is within the comM gene and coincides with the previously described Tn6022 elements suggested to account for the AbaR resistance island. We established Tn6022 in a heterologous E. coli host and confirmed basic features of transposition into the comM attachment site and the use of a novel transposition protein. By analyzing population features within Tn6022 elements we identified two potential novel transposon-encoded diversification mechanisms with this dynamic genetic island. The activities of these diversification features were confirmed in E. coli. One was a novel natural gain-of-activity allele that could function to broaden transposition targeting. The second was a transposon-encoded hybrid dif-like site that parasitizes the host dimer chromosome resolution system to function with its own tyrosine recombinase. This work establishes a highly active Tn7-like transposon that harnesses novel features allowing the spread and diversification of genetic islands in pathogenic bacteria.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alberto Correa
- Department of Microbiology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
| | | | | | - Jordan Thesier
- Department of Microbiology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
| | - Lille M Cunic
- Department of Microbiology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
| | | | - Joshua Chu
- Department of Microbiology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
| | | | - Yu Jia
- College of Life Sciences and Engineering Research Center of Bioreactor and Pharmaceutical Development (Ministry of Education), Jilin Agricultural University, Changchun City, Jilin Province, China
| | - Kevin A England
- Department of Microbiology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
| | - Joseph E Peters
- Department of Microbiology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
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7
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Bei C, Zhu J, Culviner PH, Gan M, Rubin EJ, Fortune SM, Gao Q, Liu Q. Genetically encoded transcriptional plasticity underlies stress adaptation in Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Nat Commun 2024; 15:3088. [PMID: 38600064 PMCID: PMC11006872 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-47410-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/28/2023] [Accepted: 03/28/2024] [Indexed: 04/12/2024] Open
Abstract
Transcriptional regulation is a critical adaptive mechanism that allows bacteria to respond to changing environments, yet the concept of transcriptional plasticity (TP) - the variability of gene expression in response to environmental changes - remains largely unexplored. In this study, we investigate the genome-wide TP profiles of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) genes by analyzing 894 RNA sequencing samples derived from 73 different environmental conditions. Our data reveal that Mtb genes exhibit significant TP variation that correlates with gene function and gene essentiality. We also find that critical genetic features, such as gene length, GC content, and operon size independently impose constraints on TP, beyond trans-regulation. By extending our analysis to include two other Mycobacterium species -- M. smegmatis and M. abscessus -- we demonstrate a striking conservation of the TP landscape. This study provides a comprehensive understanding of the TP exhibited by mycobacteria genes, shedding light on this significant, yet understudied, genetic feature encoded in bacterial genomes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cheng Bei
- Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Virology (MOE/NHC/CAMS), School of Basic Medical Science, Shanghai Medical College, Shanghai Institute of Infectious Disease and Biosecurity, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
| | - Junhao Zhu
- Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
- CAS Key Laboratory of Pathogen Microbiology and Immunology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Peter H Culviner
- Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Mingyu Gan
- Center for Molecular Medicine, Children's Hospital of Fudan University, National Children's Medical Center, 201102, Shanghai, China
| | - Eric J Rubin
- Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Sarah M Fortune
- Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Qian Gao
- Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Virology (MOE/NHC/CAMS), School of Basic Medical Science, Shanghai Medical College, Shanghai Institute of Infectious Disease and Biosecurity, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
- National Clinical Research Center for Infectious Diseases, Shenzhen Third People's Hospital, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China.
| | - Qingyun Liu
- Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.
- Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA.
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8
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Wu C, Xiong L, Liao Q, Zhang W, Xiao Y, Xie Y. Clinical manifestations, antimicrobial resistance and genomic feature analysis of multidrug-resistant Elizabethkingia strains. Ann Clin Microbiol Antimicrob 2024; 23:32. [PMID: 38600542 PMCID: PMC11007976 DOI: 10.1186/s12941-024-00691-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/13/2023] [Accepted: 03/26/2024] [Indexed: 04/12/2024] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Elizabethkingia is emerging as an opportunistic pathogen in humans. The aim of this study was to investigate the clinical epidemiology, antimicrobial susceptibility, virulence factors, and genome features of Elizabethkingia spp. METHODS Clinical data from 71 patients who were diagnosed with Elizabethkingia-induced pneumonia and bacteremia between August 2019 and September 2021 were analyzed. Whole-genome sequencing was performed on seven isolates, and the results were compared with a dataset of 83 available Elizabethkingia genomes. Genomic features, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) results and clusters of orthologous groups (COGs) were analyzed. RESULTS The mean age of the patients was 56.9 ± 20.7 years, and the in-hospital mortality rate was 29.6% (21/71). Elizabethkingia strains were obtained mainly from intensive care units (36.6%, 26/71) and emergency departments (32.4%, 23/71). The majority of the strains were isolated from respiratory tract specimens (85.9%, 61/71). All patients had a history of broad-spectrum antimicrobial exposure. Hospitalization for invasive mechanical ventilation or catheter insertion was found to be a risk factor for infection. The isolates displayed a high rate of resistance to cephalosporins and carbapenems, but all were susceptible to minocycline and colistin. Genomic analysis identified five β-lactamase genes (blaGOB, blaBlaB, blaCME, blaOXA, and blaTEM) responsible for β-lactam resistance and virulence genes involved in stress adaptation (ureB/G, katA/B, and clpP), adherence (groEL, tufA, and htpB) and immune modulation (gmd, tviB, cps4J, wbtIL, cap8E/D/G, and rfbC). Functional analysis of the COGs revealed that "metabolism" constituted the largest category within the core genome, while "information storage and processing" was predominant in both the accessory and unique genomes. The unique genes in our 7 strains were mostly enriched in KEGG pathways related to microRNAs in cancer, drug resistance (β-lactam and vancomycin), ABC transporters, biological metabolism and biosynthesis, and nucleotide excision repair mechanisms. CONCLUSION The Elizabethkingia genus exhibits multidrug resistance and carries carbapenemase genes. This study presents a comparative genomic analysis of Elizabethkingia, providing knowledge that facilitates a better understanding of this microorganism.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chongyang Wu
- Department of Laboratory Medicine, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610041, China
| | - Li Xiong
- Department of Laboratory Medicine, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610041, China
| | - Quanfeng Liao
- Department of Laboratory Medicine, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610041, China
| | - Weili Zhang
- Department of Laboratory Medicine, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610041, China
| | - Yuling Xiao
- Department of Laboratory Medicine, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610041, China
| | - Yi Xie
- Department of Laboratory Medicine, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610041, China.
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Zepeda-Rivera M, Minot SS, Bouzek H, Wu H, Blanco-Míguez A, Manghi P, Jones DS, LaCourse KD, Wu Y, McMahon EF, Park SN, Lim YK, Kempchinsky AG, Willis AD, Cotton SL, Yost SC, Sicinska E, Kook JK, Dewhirst FE, Segata N, Bullman S, Johnston CD. A distinct Fusobacterium nucleatum clade dominates the colorectal cancer niche. Nature 2024; 628:424-432. [PMID: 38509359 PMCID: PMC11006615 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07182-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/19/2023] [Accepted: 02/08/2024] [Indexed: 03/22/2024]
Abstract
Fusobacterium nucleatum (Fn), a bacterium present in the human oral cavity and rarely found in the lower gastrointestinal tract of healthy individuals1, is enriched in human colorectal cancer (CRC) tumours2-5. High intratumoural Fn loads are associated with recurrence, metastases and poorer patient prognosis5-8. Here, to delineate Fn genetic factors facilitating tumour colonization, we generated closed genomes for 135 Fn strains; 80 oral strains from individuals without cancer and 55 unique cancer strains cultured from tumours from 51 patients with CRC. Pangenomic analyses identified 483 CRC-enriched genetic factors. Tumour-isolated strains predominantly belong to Fn subspecies animalis (Fna). However, genomic analyses reveal that Fna, considered a single subspecies, is instead composed of two distinct clades (Fna C1 and Fna C2). Of these, only Fna C2 dominates the CRC tumour niche. Inter-Fna analyses identified 195 Fna C2-associated genetic factors consistent with increased metabolic potential and colonization of the gastrointestinal tract. In support of this, Fna C2-treated mice had an increased number of intestinal adenomas and altered metabolites. Microbiome analysis of human tumour tissue from 116 patients with CRC demonstrated Fna C2 enrichment. Comparison of 62 paired specimens showed that only Fna C2 is tumour enriched compared to normal adjacent tissue. This was further supported by metagenomic analysis of stool samples from 627 patients with CRC and 619 healthy individuals. Collectively, our results identify the Fna clade bifurcation, show that specifically Fna C2 drives the reported Fn enrichment in human CRC and reveal the genetic underpinnings of pathoadaptation of Fna C2 to the CRC niche.
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Affiliation(s)
- Martha Zepeda-Rivera
- Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Samuel S Minot
- Data Core, Shared Resources, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Heather Bouzek
- Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Hanrui Wu
- Human Biology Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Aitor Blanco-Míguez
- Department of Computational, Cellular and Integrative Biology, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
| | - Paolo Manghi
- Department of Computational, Cellular and Integrative Biology, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
| | - Dakota S Jones
- Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, WA, USA
| | | | - Ying Wu
- Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Elsa F McMahon
- Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Soon-Nang Park
- Korean Collection for Oral Microbiology and Department of Oral Biochemistry, School of Dentistry, Chosun University, Gwangju, Republic of Korea
| | - Yun K Lim
- Korean Collection for Oral Microbiology and Department of Oral Biochemistry, School of Dentistry, Chosun University, Gwangju, Republic of Korea
| | | | - Amy D Willis
- Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
| | | | | | - Ewa Sicinska
- Department of Pathology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Joong-Ki Kook
- Korean Collection for Oral Microbiology and Department of Oral Biochemistry, School of Dentistry, Chosun University, Gwangju, Republic of Korea
| | - Floyd E Dewhirst
- Forsyth Institute, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Department of Oral Medicine, Infection and Immunity, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Nicola Segata
- Department of Computational, Cellular and Integrative Biology, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
| | - Susan Bullman
- Human Biology Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, WA, USA.
| | - Christopher D Johnston
- Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, WA, USA.
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10
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McCutcheon JP, Garber AI, Spencer N, Warren JM. How do bacterial endosymbionts work with so few genes? PLoS Biol 2024; 22:e3002577. [PMID: 38626194 PMCID: PMC11020763 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3002577] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/18/2024] Open
Abstract
The move from a free-living environment to a long-term residence inside a host eukaryotic cell has profound effects on bacterial function. While endosymbioses are found in many eukaryotes, from protists to plants to animals, the bacteria that form these host-beneficial relationships are even more diverse. Endosymbiont genomes can become radically smaller than their free-living relatives, and their few remaining genes show extreme compositional biases. The details of how these reduced and divergent gene sets work, and how they interact with their host cell, remain mysterious. This Unsolved Mystery reviews how genome reduction alters endosymbiont biology and highlights a "tipping point" where the loss of the ability to build a cell envelope coincides with a marked erosion of translation-related genes.
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Affiliation(s)
- John P. McCutcheon
- Biodesign Institute and School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States of America
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Chevy Chase, Maryland, United States of America
| | - Arkadiy I. Garber
- Biodesign Institute and School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States of America
| | - Noah Spencer
- Biodesign Institute and School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States of America
| | - Jessica M. Warren
- Biodesign Institute and School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States of America
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Chevy Chase, Maryland, United States of America
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11
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Sheinman M, Arndt PF, Massip F. Modeling the mosaic structure of bacterial genomes to infer their evolutionary history. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2024; 121:e2313367121. [PMID: 38517978 PMCID: PMC10990148 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2313367121] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/03/2023] [Accepted: 01/30/2024] [Indexed: 03/24/2024] Open
Abstract
The chronology and phylogeny of bacterial evolution are difficult to reconstruct due to a scarce fossil record. The analysis of bacterial genomes remains challenging because of large sequence divergence, the plasticity of bacterial genomes due to frequent gene loss, horizontal gene transfer, and differences in selective pressure from one locus to another. Therefore, taking advantage of the rich and rapidly accumulating genomic data requires accurate modeling of genome evolution. An important technical consideration is that loci with high effective mutation rates may diverge beyond the detection limit of the alignment algorithms used, biasing the genome-wide divergence estimates toward smaller divergences. In this article, we propose a novel method to gain insight into bacterial evolution based on statistical properties of genome comparisons. We find that the length distribution of sequence matches is shaped by the effective mutation rates of different loci, by the horizontal transfers, and by the aligner sensitivity. Based on these inputs, we build a model and show that it accounts for the empirically observed distributions, taking the Enterobacteriaceae family as an example. Our method allows to distinguish segments of vertical and horizontal origins and to estimate the time divergence and exchange rate between any pair of taxa from genome-wide alignments. Based on the estimated time divergences, we construct a time-calibrated phylogenetic tree to demonstrate the accuracy of the method.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael Sheinman
- Institute for Advanced Studies, Sevastopol State University, Sevastopol299053, Crimea
| | - Peter F. Arndt
- Department of Computational Molecular Biology, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin12163, Germany
| | - Florian Massip
- Department U900, Centre for Computational Biology, Mines Paris, PSL University, Paris75006, France
- Department U900, Institut Curie, Université Paris Sciences et Lettres, Paris75005, France
- INSERM, U900, Paris75005, France
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12
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Guerrero-Egido G, Pintado A, Bretscher KM, Arias-Giraldo LM, Paulson JN, Spaink HP, Claessen D, Ramos C, Cazorla FM, Medema MH, Raaijmakers JM, Carrión VJ. bacLIFE: a user-friendly computational workflow for genome analysis and prediction of lifestyle-associated genes in bacteria. Nat Commun 2024; 15:2072. [PMID: 38453959 PMCID: PMC10920822 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-46302-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/13/2023] [Accepted: 02/21/2024] [Indexed: 03/09/2024] Open
Abstract
Bacteria have an extensive adaptive ability to live in close association with eukaryotic hosts, exhibiting detrimental, neutral or beneficial effects on host growth and health. However, the genes involved in niche adaptation are mostly unknown and their functions poorly characterized. Here, we present bacLIFE ( https://github.com/Carrion-lab/bacLIFE ) a streamlined computational workflow for genome annotation, large-scale comparative genomics, and prediction of lifestyle-associated genes (LAGs). As a proof of concept, we analyzed 16,846 genomes from the Burkholderia/Paraburkholderia and Pseudomonas genera, which led to the identification of hundreds of genes potentially associated with a plant pathogenic lifestyle. Site-directed mutagenesis of 14 of these predicted LAGs of unknown function, followed by plant bioassays, showed that 6 predicted LAGs are indeed involved in the phytopathogenic lifestyle of Burkholderia plantarii and Pseudomonas syringae pv. phaseolicola. These 6 LAGs encompassed a glycosyltransferase, extracellular binding proteins, homoserine dehydrogenases and hypothetical proteins. Collectively, our results highlight bacLIFE as an effective computational tool for prediction of LAGs and the generation of hypotheses for a better understanding of bacteria-host interactions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Guillermo Guerrero-Egido
- Institute of Biology, Leiden University, Sylviusweg 72, 2333 BE, Leiden, The Netherlands
- Department of Microbial Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), Droevendaalsesteeg 10, 6708 PB, Wageningen, The Netherlands
- Departamento de Microbiología, Facultad de Ciencias, Campus Universitario de Teatinos s/n, Universidad de Málaga, 29010, Málaga, Spain
- Departamento de Protección de Cultivos, Instituto de Hortofruticultura Subtropical y Mediterránea "La Mayora", Campus Universitario de Teatinos, Universidad de Málaga-Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (IHSM-UMA-CSIC), 29010, Málaga, Spain
| | - Adrian Pintado
- Institute of Biology, Leiden University, Sylviusweg 72, 2333 BE, Leiden, The Netherlands
- Departamento de Microbiología, Facultad de Ciencias, Campus Universitario de Teatinos s/n, Universidad de Málaga, 29010, Málaga, Spain
- Departamento de Protección de Cultivos, Instituto de Hortofruticultura Subtropical y Mediterránea "La Mayora", Campus Universitario de Teatinos, Universidad de Málaga-Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (IHSM-UMA-CSIC), 29010, Málaga, Spain
| | - Kevin M Bretscher
- Institute of Biology, Leiden University, Sylviusweg 72, 2333 BE, Leiden, The Netherlands
- Department of Microbial Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), Droevendaalsesteeg 10, 6708 PB, Wageningen, The Netherlands
- Departamento de Microbiología, Facultad de Ciencias, Campus Universitario de Teatinos s/n, Universidad de Málaga, 29010, Málaga, Spain
- Departamento de Protección de Cultivos, Instituto de Hortofruticultura Subtropical y Mediterránea "La Mayora", Campus Universitario de Teatinos, Universidad de Málaga-Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (IHSM-UMA-CSIC), 29010, Málaga, Spain
| | - Luisa-Maria Arias-Giraldo
- Department of Microbial Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), Droevendaalsesteeg 10, 6708 PB, Wageningen, The Netherlands
| | - Joseph N Paulson
- Department of Data Sciences, N-Power Medicine, Redwood City, CA, 94063, USA
| | - Herman P Spaink
- Institute of Biology, Leiden University, Sylviusweg 72, 2333 BE, Leiden, The Netherlands
| | - Dennis Claessen
- Institute of Biology, Leiden University, Sylviusweg 72, 2333 BE, Leiden, The Netherlands
| | - Cayo Ramos
- Departamento de Protección de Cultivos, Instituto de Hortofruticultura Subtropical y Mediterránea "La Mayora", Campus Universitario de Teatinos, Universidad de Málaga-Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (IHSM-UMA-CSIC), 29010, Málaga, Spain
- Área de Genética, Facultad de Ciencias, Campus Universitario de Teatinos s/n, Universidad de Málaga, 29010, Málaga, Spain
| | - Francisco M Cazorla
- Departamento de Microbiología, Facultad de Ciencias, Campus Universitario de Teatinos s/n, Universidad de Málaga, 29010, Málaga, Spain
- Departamento de Protección de Cultivos, Instituto de Hortofruticultura Subtropical y Mediterránea "La Mayora", Campus Universitario de Teatinos, Universidad de Málaga-Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (IHSM-UMA-CSIC), 29010, Málaga, Spain
| | - Marnix H Medema
- Institute of Biology, Leiden University, Sylviusweg 72, 2333 BE, Leiden, The Netherlands
- Bioinformatics Group, Wageningen University, Droevendaalsesteeg 1, 6708 PB, Wageningen, The Netherlands
| | - Jos M Raaijmakers
- Institute of Biology, Leiden University, Sylviusweg 72, 2333 BE, Leiden, The Netherlands
- Department of Microbial Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), Droevendaalsesteeg 10, 6708 PB, Wageningen, The Netherlands
| | - Víctor J Carrión
- Institute of Biology, Leiden University, Sylviusweg 72, 2333 BE, Leiden, The Netherlands.
- Department of Microbial Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), Droevendaalsesteeg 10, 6708 PB, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
- Departamento de Microbiología, Facultad de Ciencias, Campus Universitario de Teatinos s/n, Universidad de Málaga, 29010, Málaga, Spain.
- Departamento de Protección de Cultivos, Instituto de Hortofruticultura Subtropical y Mediterránea "La Mayora", Campus Universitario de Teatinos, Universidad de Málaga-Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (IHSM-UMA-CSIC), 29010, Málaga, Spain.
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13
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Majander K, Pla-Díaz M, du Plessis L, Arora N, Filippini J, Pezo-Lanfranco L, Eggers S, González-Candelas F, Schuenemann VJ. Redefining the treponemal history through pre-Columbian genomes from Brazil. Nature 2024; 627:182-188. [PMID: 38267579 PMCID: PMC10917687 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06965-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/25/2023] [Accepted: 12/12/2023] [Indexed: 01/26/2024]
Abstract
The origins of treponemal diseases have long remained unknown, especially considering the sudden onset of the first syphilis epidemic in the late 15th century in Europe and its hypothesized arrival from the Americas with Columbus' expeditions1,2. Recently, ancient DNA evidence has revealed various treponemal infections circulating in early modern Europe and colonial-era Mexico3-6. However, there has been to our knowledge no genomic evidence of treponematosis recovered from either the Americas or the Old World that can be reliably dated to the time before the first trans-Atlantic contacts. Here, we present treponemal genomes from nearly 2,000-year-old human remains from Brazil. We reconstruct four ancient genomes of a prehistoric treponemal pathogen, most closely related to the bejel-causing agent Treponema pallidum endemicum. Contradicting the modern day geographical niche of bejel in the arid regions of the world, the results call into question the previous palaeopathological characterization of treponeme subspecies and showcase their adaptive potential. A high-coverage genome is used to improve molecular clock date estimations, placing the divergence of modern T. pallidum subspecies firmly in pre-Columbian times. Overall, our study demonstrates the opportunities within archaeogenetics to uncover key events in pathogen evolution and emergence, paving the way to new hypotheses on the origin and spread of treponematoses.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kerttu Majander
- Institute of Evolutionary Medicine, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
- Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
| | - Marta Pla-Díaz
- Unidad Mixta Infección y Salud Pública, FISABIO/Universidad de Valencia-I2SysBio, Valencia, Spain
- CIBER in Epidemiology and Public Health, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain
| | - Louis du Plessis
- Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, ETH Zürich, Basel, Switzerland
- Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Quartier Sorge, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Natasha Arora
- Zurich Institute of Forensic Medicine, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Jose Filippini
- Department of Genetic and Evolutionary Biology, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Luis Pezo-Lanfranco
- Department of Genetic and Evolutionary Biology, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
- Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA) and Prehistory Department, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain
| | - Sabine Eggers
- Department of Genetic and Evolutionary Biology, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
- Department of Anthropology, Natural History Museum Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Fernando González-Candelas
- Unidad Mixta Infección y Salud Pública, FISABIO/Universidad de Valencia-I2SysBio, Valencia, Spain.
- CIBER in Epidemiology and Public Health, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain.
| | - Verena J Schuenemann
- Institute of Evolutionary Medicine, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
- Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
- Human Evolution and Archaeological Sciences (HEAS), University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
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14
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Sharma A, Timilsina S, Abrahamian P, Minsavage GV, Jones JB, Vallad GE, Goss EM. Bacterial Mutation During Seasonal Epidemics. Mol Plant Microbe Interact 2024; 37:93-97. [PMID: 38105425 DOI: 10.1094/mpmi-10-23-0164-sc] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/19/2023]
Abstract
Rapidly evolving bacterial pathogens pose a unique challenge for long-term plant disease management. In this study, we investigated the types and rate of mutations in bacterial populations during seasonal disease epidemics. Two phylogenetically distinct strains of the bacterial spot pathogen, Xanthomonas perforans, were marked, released in tomato fields, and recaptured at several time points during the growing season. Genomic variations in recaptured isolates were identified by comparative analysis of their whole-genome sequences. In total, 180 unique variations (116 substitutions, 57 insertions/deletions, and 7 structural variations) were identified from 300 genomes, resulting in the overall host-associated mutation rate of ∼0.3 to 0.9/genome/week. This result serves as a benchmark for bacterial mutation during epidemics in similar pathosystems. [Formula: see text] Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anuj Sharma
- Department of Plant Pathology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, U.S.A
- Gulf Coast Research and Education Center, University of Florida, Wimauma, FL, U.S.A
| | - Sujan Timilsina
- Department of Plant Pathology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, U.S.A
| | - Peter Abrahamian
- Gulf Coast Research and Education Center, University of Florida, Wimauma, FL, U.S.A
| | - Gerald V Minsavage
- Department of Plant Pathology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, U.S.A
| | - Jeffrey B Jones
- Department of Plant Pathology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, U.S.A
| | - Gary E Vallad
- Gulf Coast Research and Education Center, University of Florida, Wimauma, FL, U.S.A
| | - Erica M Goss
- Department of Plant Pathology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, U.S.A
- Emerging Pathogens Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, U.S.A
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15
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Pountain AW, Jiang P, Yao T, Homaee E, Guan Y, McDonald KJC, Podkowik M, Shopsin B, Torres VJ, Golding I, Yanai I. Transcription-replication interactions reveal bacterial genome regulation. Nature 2024; 626:661-669. [PMID: 38267581 PMCID: PMC10923101 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06974-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/22/2023] [Accepted: 12/14/2023] [Indexed: 01/26/2024]
Abstract
Organisms determine the transcription rates of thousands of genes through a few modes of regulation that recur across the genome1. In bacteria, the relationship between the regulatory architecture of a gene and its expression is well understood for individual model gene circuits2,3. However, a broader perspective of these dynamics at the genome scale is lacking, in part because bacterial transcriptomics has hitherto captured only a static snapshot of expression averaged across millions of cells4. As a result, the full diversity of gene expression dynamics and their relation to regulatory architecture remains unknown. Here we present a novel genome-wide classification of regulatory modes based on the transcriptional response of each gene to its own replication, which we term the transcription-replication interaction profile (TRIP). Analysing single-bacterium RNA-sequencing data, we found that the response to the universal perturbation of chromosomal replication integrates biological regulatory factors with biophysical molecular events on the chromosome to reveal the local regulatory context of a gene. Whereas the TRIPs of many genes conform to a gene dosage-dependent pattern, others diverge in distinct ways, and this is shaped by factors such as intra-operon position and repression state. By revealing the underlying mechanistic drivers of gene expression heterogeneity, this work provides a quantitative, biophysical framework for modelling replication-dependent expression dynamics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrew W Pountain
- Institute for Systems Genetics, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA
| | - Peien Jiang
- Institute for Systems Genetics, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA
- Department of Biology, New York University, New York, NY, USA
| | - Tianyou Yao
- Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA
| | - Ehsan Homaee
- Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA
- Center for Biophysics and Computational Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA
| | - Yichao Guan
- Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA
| | - Kevin J C McDonald
- Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA
| | - Magdalena Podkowik
- Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA
| | - Bo Shopsin
- Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA
- Department of Microbiology, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA
| | - Victor J Torres
- Department of Microbiology, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA
- Department of Host-Microbe Interactions, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA
| | - Ido Golding
- Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA
- Department of Microbiology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA
| | - Itai Yanai
- Institute for Systems Genetics, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA.
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA.
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16
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Giovanelli Tacconi Gimenez E, Viana MVC, de Jesus Sousa T, Aburjaile F, Brenig B, Silva A, Azevedo V. Resequencing and characterization of the first Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis genome isolated from camel. PeerJ 2024; 12:e16513. [PMID: 38313017 PMCID: PMC10836205 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.16513] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/25/2023] [Accepted: 11/02/2023] [Indexed: 02/06/2024] Open
Abstract
Background Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis is a zoonotic Gram-positive bacterial pathogen known to cause different diseases in many mammals, including lymph node abscesses in camels. Strains from biovars equi and ovis of C. pseudotuberculosis can infect camels. Comparative genomics could help to identify features related to host adaptation, and currently strain Cp162 from biovar equi is the only one from camel with a sequenced genome. Methods In this work, we compared the quality of three genome assemblies of strain Cp162 that used data from the DNA sequencing platforms SOLiD v3 Plus, IonTorrent PGM, and Illumina HiSeq 2500 with an optical map and investigate the unique features of this strain. For this purpose, we applied comparative genomic analysis on the different Cp162 genome assembly versions and included other 129 genomes from the same species. Results Since the first version of the genome, there was an increase of 88 Kbp and 121 protein-coding sequences, a decrease of pseudogenes from 139 to 53, and two inversions and one rearrangement corrected. We identified 30 virulence genes, none associated to the camel host, and the genes rpob2 and rbpA predicted to confer resistance to rifampin. In comparison to 129 genomes of the same species, strain Cp162 has four genes exclusively present, two of them code transposases and two truncated proteins, and the three exclusively absent genes lysG, NUDIX domain protein, and Hypothetical protein. All 130 genomes had the rifampin resistance genes rpob2 and rbpA. Our results found no unique gene that could be associated with tropism to camel host, and further studies should include more genomes and genome-wide association studies testing for genes and SNPs.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | - Flávia Aburjaile
- Veterinary School, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil
| | - Bertram Brenig
- Institute of Veterinary Medicine, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Niedersachsen, Germany
| | - Artur Silva
- Institute of Biological Sciences, Federal University of Pará, Belém, Pará, Brazil
| | - Vasco Azevedo
- Institute of Biological Sciences, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil
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17
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Viver T, Conrad RE, Rodriguez-R LM, Ramírez AS, Venter SN, Rocha-Cárdenas J, Llabrés M, Amann R, Konstantinidis KT, Rossello-Mora R. Towards estimating the number of strains that make up a natural bacterial population. Nat Commun 2024; 15:544. [PMID: 38228587 PMCID: PMC10791622 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-44622-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/19/2023] [Accepted: 12/19/2023] [Indexed: 01/18/2024] Open
Abstract
What a strain is and how many strains make up a natural bacterial population remain elusive concepts despite their apparent importance for assessing the role of intra-population diversity in disease emergence or response to environmental perturbations. To advance these concepts, we sequenced 138 randomly selected Salinibacter ruber isolates from two solar salterns and assessed these genomes against companion short-read metagenomes from the same samples. The distribution of genome-aggregate average nucleotide identity (ANI) values among these isolates revealed a bimodal distribution, with four-fold lower occurrence of values between 99.2% and 99.8% relative to ANI >99.8% or <99.2%, revealing a natural "gap" in the sequence space within species. Accordingly, we used this ANI gap to define genomovars and a higher ANI value of >99.99% and shared gene-content >99.0% to define strains. Using these thresholds and extrapolating from how many metagenomic reads each genomovar uniquely recruited, we estimated that -although our 138 isolates represented about 80% of the Sal. ruber population- the total population in one saltern pond is composed of 5,500 to 11,000 genomovars, the great majority of which appear to be rare in-situ. These data also revealed that the most frequently recovered isolate in lab media was often not the most abundant genomovar in-situ, suggesting that cultivation biases are significant, even in cases that cultivation procedures are thought to be robust. The methodology and ANI thresholds outlined here should represent a useful guide for future microdiversity surveys of additional microbial species.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tomeu Viver
- Marine Microbiology Group, Department of Animal and Microbial Biodiversity, Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies (IMEDEA, CSIC-UIB), Esporles, Spain.
- Department of Molecular Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Bremen, Germany.
| | - Roth E Conrad
- School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA
| | - Luis M Rodriguez-R
- Department of Microbiology, and Digital Science Center (DiSC), Universität of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
| | - Ana S Ramírez
- Unidad de Epidemiología y Medicina Preventiva, IUSA, Facultad de Veterinaria, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, C/Trasmontaña s/n, Arucas, 35413, Canary Islands, Spain
| | - Stephanus N Venter
- Department of Biochemistry, Genetics and Microbiology, and Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI), University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
| | - Jairo Rocha-Cárdenas
- Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of the Balearic Islands, Palma, 07122, Spain
| | - Mercè Llabrés
- Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of the Balearic Islands, Palma, 07122, Spain
| | - Rudolf Amann
- Department of Molecular Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Bremen, Germany
| | - Konstantinos T Konstantinidis
- School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA.
| | - Ramon Rossello-Mora
- Marine Microbiology Group, Department of Animal and Microbial Biodiversity, Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies (IMEDEA, CSIC-UIB), Esporles, Spain.
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18
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Guo C, Chen Q, Fan G, Sun Y, Nie J, Shen Z, Meng Z, Zhou Y, Li S, Wang S, Ma J, Sun Q, Wu L. gcPathogen: a comprehensive genomic resource of human pathogens for public health. Nucleic Acids Res 2024; 52:D714-D723. [PMID: 37850635 PMCID: PMC10767814 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkad875] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/06/2023] [Revised: 09/26/2023] [Accepted: 09/28/2023] [Indexed: 10/19/2023] Open
Abstract
Here, we present the manually curated Global Catalogue of Pathogens (gcPathogen), an extensive genomic resource designed to facilitate rapid and accurate pathogen analysis, epidemiological exploration and monitoring of antibiotic resistance features and virulence factors. The catalogue seamlessly integrates and analyzes genomic data and associated metadata for human pathogens isolated from infected patients, animal hosts, food and the environment. The pathogen list is supported by evidence from medical or government pathogenic lists and publications. The current version of gcPathogen boasts an impressive collection of 1 164 974 assemblies comprising 986 044 strains from 497 bacterial taxa, 4794 assemblies encompassing 4319 strains from 265 fungal taxa, 89 965 assemblies featuring 13 687 strains from 222 viral taxa, and 646 assemblies including 387 strains from 159 parasitic taxa. Through this database, researchers gain access to a comprehensive 'one-stop shop' that facilitates global, long-term public health surveillance while enabling in-depth analysis of genomes, sequence types, antibiotic resistance genes, virulence factors and mobile genetic elements across different countries, diseases and hosts. To access and explore the data and statistics, an interactive web interface has been developed, which can be accessed at https://nmdc.cn/gcpathogen/. This user-friendly platform allows seamless querying and exploration of the extensive information housed within the gcPathogen database.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chongye Guo
- Microbial Resource and Big Data Center, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- Chinese National Microbiology Data Center (NMDC), Beijing 100101, China
| | - Qi Chen
- Microbial Resource and Big Data Center, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- Chinese National Microbiology Data Center (NMDC), Beijing 100101, China
| | - Guomei Fan
- Microbial Resource and Big Data Center, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- Chinese National Microbiology Data Center (NMDC), Beijing 100101, China
| | - Yan Sun
- Microbial Resource and Big Data Center, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- Chinese National Microbiology Data Center (NMDC), Beijing 100101, China
| | - Jingyi Nie
- Microbial Resource and Big Data Center, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- Chinese National Microbiology Data Center (NMDC), Beijing 100101, China
| | - Zhihong Shen
- Computer Network Information Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
| | - Zhen Meng
- Computer Network Information Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
| | - Yuanchun Zhou
- Computer Network Information Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
| | - Shiwen Li
- Microbial Resource and Big Data Center, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- Chinese National Microbiology Data Center (NMDC), Beijing 100101, China
| | - Shuai Wang
- Microbial Resource and Big Data Center, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- Chinese National Microbiology Data Center (NMDC), Beijing 100101, China
| | - Juncai Ma
- Microbial Resource and Big Data Center, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- Chinese National Microbiology Data Center (NMDC), Beijing 100101, China
- State Key Laboratory of Microbial Resources, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
| | - Qinglan Sun
- Microbial Resource and Big Data Center, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- Chinese National Microbiology Data Center (NMDC), Beijing 100101, China
| | - Linhuan Wu
- Microbial Resource and Big Data Center, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- Chinese National Microbiology Data Center (NMDC), Beijing 100101, China
- State Key Laboratory of Microbial Resources, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
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19
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Haft DH, Badretdin A, Coulouris G, DiCuccio M, Durkin A, Jovenitti E, Li W, Mersha M, O’Neill K, Virothaisakun J, Thibaud-Nissen F. RefSeq and the prokaryotic genome annotation pipeline in the age of metagenomes. Nucleic Acids Res 2024; 52:D762-D769. [PMID: 37962425 PMCID: PMC10767926 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkad988] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/15/2023] [Revised: 10/13/2023] [Accepted: 10/18/2023] [Indexed: 11/15/2023] Open
Abstract
The Reference Sequence (RefSeq) project at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) contains over 315 000 bacterial and archaeal genomes and 236 million proteins with up-to-date and consistent annotation. In the past 3 years, we have expanded the diversity of the RefSeq collection by including the best quality metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) submitted to INSDC (DDBJ, ENA and GenBank), while maintaining its quality by adding validation checks. Assemblies are now more stringently evaluated for contamination and for completeness of annotation prior to acceptance into RefSeq. MAGs now account for over 17000 assemblies in RefSeq, split over 165 orders and 362 families. Changes in the Prokaryotic Genome Annotation Pipeline (PGAP), which is used to annotate nearly all RefSeq assemblies include better detection of protein-coding genes. Nearly 83% of RefSeq proteins are now named by a curated Protein Family Model, a 4.7% increase in the past three years ago. In addition to literature citations, Enzyme Commission numbers, and gene symbols, Gene Ontology terms are now assigned to 48% of RefSeq proteins, allowing for easier multi-genome comparison. RefSeq is found at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/refseq/. PGAP is available as a stand-alone tool able to produce GenBank-ready files at https://github.com/ncbi/pgap.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel H Haft
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20894, USA
| | - Azat Badretdin
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20894, USA
| | - George Coulouris
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20894, USA
| | - Michael DiCuccio
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20894, USA
| | - A Scott Durkin
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20894, USA
| | - Eric Jovenitti
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20894, USA
| | - Wenjun Li
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20894, USA
| | - Megdelawit Mersha
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20894, USA
| | - Kathleen R O’Neill
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20894, USA
| | - Joel Virothaisakun
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20894, USA
| | - Françoise Thibaud-Nissen
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20894, USA
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20
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Beavan A, Domingo-Sananes MR, McInerney JO. Contingency, repeatability, and predictability in the evolution of a prokaryotic pangenome. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2024; 121:e2304934120. [PMID: 38147560 PMCID: PMC10769857 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2304934120] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/27/2023] [Accepted: 11/05/2023] [Indexed: 12/28/2023] Open
Abstract
Pangenomes exhibit remarkable variability in many prokaryotic species, much of which is maintained through the processes of horizontal gene transfer and gene loss. Repeated acquisitions of near-identical homologs can easily be observed across pangenomes, leading to the question of whether these parallel events potentiate similar evolutionary trajectories, or whether the remarkably different genetic backgrounds of the recipients mean that postacquisition evolutionary trajectories end up being quite different. In this study, we present a machine learning method that predicts the presence or absence of genes in the Escherichia coli pangenome based on complex patterns of the presence or absence of other accessory genes within a genome. Our analysis leverages the repeated transfer of genes through the E. coli pangenome to observe patterns of repeated evolution following similar events. We find that the presence or absence of a substantial set of genes is highly predictable from other genes alone, indicating that selection potentiates and maintains gene-gene co-occurrence and avoidance relationships deterministically over long-term bacterial evolution and is robust to differences in host evolutionary history. We propose that at least part of the pangenome can be understood as a set of genes with relationships that govern their likely cohabitants, analogous to an ecosystem's set of interacting organisms. Our findings indicate that intragenomic gene fitness effects may be key drivers of prokaryotic evolution, influencing the repeated emergence of complex gene-gene relationships across the pangenome.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alan Beavan
- School of Life Sciences, The University of Nottingham, NottinghamNG7 2UH, United Kingdom
| | - Maria Rosa Domingo-Sananes
- School of Life Sciences, The University of Nottingham, NottinghamNG7 2UH, United Kingdom
- School of Science and Technology, Nottingham Trent University, NottinghamNG1 4FQ, United Kingdom
| | - James O. McInerney
- School of Life Sciences, The University of Nottingham, NottinghamNG7 2UH, United Kingdom
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21
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Hibberd MC, Webber DM, Rodionov DA, Henrissat S, Chen RY, Zhou C, Lynn HM, Wang Y, Chang HW, Lee EM, Lelwala-Guruge J, Kazanov MD, Arzamasov AA, Leyn SA, Lombard V, Terrapon N, Henrissat B, Castillo JJ, Couture G, Bacalzo NP, Chen Y, Lebrilla CB, Mostafa I, Das S, Mahfuz M, Barratt MJ, Osterman AL, Ahmed T, Gordon JI. Bioactive glycans in a microbiome-directed food for children with malnutrition. Nature 2024; 625:157-165. [PMID: 38093016 PMCID: PMC10764277 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06838-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/18/2022] [Accepted: 11/06/2023] [Indexed: 12/26/2023]
Abstract
Evidence is accumulating that perturbed postnatal development of the gut microbiome contributes to childhood malnutrition1-4. Here we analyse biospecimens from a randomized, controlled trial of a microbiome-directed complementary food (MDCF-2) that produced superior rates of weight gain compared with a calorically more dense conventional ready-to-use supplementary food in 12-18-month-old Bangladeshi children with moderate acute malnutrition4. We reconstructed 1,000 bacterial genomes (metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs)) from the faecal microbiomes of trial participants, identified 75 MAGs of which the abundances were positively associated with ponderal growth (change in weight-for-length Z score (WLZ)), characterized changes in MAG gene expression as a function of treatment type and WLZ response, and quantified carbohydrate structures in MDCF-2 and faeces. The results reveal that two Prevotella copri MAGs that are positively associated with WLZ are the principal contributors to MDCF-2-induced expression of metabolic pathways involved in utilizing the component glycans of MDCF-2. The predicted specificities of carbohydrate-active enzymes expressed by their polysaccharide-utilization loci are correlated with (1) the in vitro growth of Bangladeshi P. copri strains, possessing varying degrees of polysaccharide-utilization loci and genomic conservation with these MAGs, in defined medium containing different purified glycans representative of those in MDCF-2, and (2) the levels of faecal carbohydrate structures in the trial participants. These associations suggest that identifying bioactive glycan structures in MDCFs metabolized by growth-associated bacterial taxa will help to guide recommendations about their use in children with acute malnutrition and enable the development of additional formulations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Matthew C Hibberd
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
- Department of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
| | - Daniel M Webber
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
- Department of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
| | - Dmitry A Rodionov
- Infectious and Inflammatory Disease Center, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Suzanne Henrissat
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
- Architecture et Fonction des Macromolécules Biologiques, CNRS, Aix-Marseille University, Marseille, France
| | - Robert Y Chen
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
| | - Cyrus Zhou
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
| | - Hannah M Lynn
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
| | - Yi Wang
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
| | - Hao-Wei Chang
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
| | - Evan M Lee
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
| | - Janaki Lelwala-Guruge
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
| | - Marat D Kazanov
- Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey
| | - Aleksandr A Arzamasov
- Infectious and Inflammatory Disease Center, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Semen A Leyn
- Infectious and Inflammatory Disease Center, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Vincent Lombard
- Architecture et Fonction des Macromolécules Biologiques, CNRS, Aix-Marseille University, Marseille, France
| | - Nicolas Terrapon
- Architecture et Fonction des Macromolécules Biologiques, CNRS, Aix-Marseille University, Marseille, France
| | - Bernard Henrissat
- Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine (DTU Bioengineering), Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark
- Department of Biological Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
| | - Juan J Castillo
- Department of Chemistry, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA
| | - Garret Couture
- Department of Chemistry, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA
| | - Nikita P Bacalzo
- Department of Chemistry, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA
| | - Ye Chen
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
- Department of Chemistry, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA
| | - Carlito B Lebrilla
- Department of Chemistry, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA
| | - Ishita Mostafa
- International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), Dhaka, Bangladesh
| | - Subhasish Das
- International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), Dhaka, Bangladesh
| | - Mustafa Mahfuz
- International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), Dhaka, Bangladesh
| | - Michael J Barratt
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
- Department of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
| | - Andrei L Osterman
- Infectious and Inflammatory Disease Center, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Tahmeed Ahmed
- International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), Dhaka, Bangladesh
| | - Jeffrey I Gordon
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA.
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA.
- Department of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA.
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22
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Molina-Pardines C, Haro-Moreno JM, López-Pérez M. Phosphate-related genomic islands as drivers of environmental adaptation in the streamlined marine alphaproteobacterial HIMB59. mSystems 2023; 8:e0089823. [PMID: 38054740 PMCID: PMC10734472 DOI: 10.1128/msystems.00898-23] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/28/2023] [Accepted: 10/17/2023] [Indexed: 12/07/2023] Open
Abstract
IMPORTANCE These results shed light on the evolutionary strategies of microbes with streamlined genomes to adapt and survive in the oligotrophic conditions that dominate the surface waters of the global ocean. At the individual level, these microbes have been subjected to evolutionary constraints that have led to a more efficient use of nutrients, removing non-essential genes named as "streamlining theory." However, at the population level, they conserve a highly diverse gene pool in flexible genomic islands resulting in polyclonal populations on the same genomic background as an evolutionary response to environmental pressures. Localization of these islands at equivalent positions in the genome facilitates horizontal transfer between clonal lineages. This high level of environmental genomic heterogeneity could explain their cosmopolitan distribution. In the case of the order HIMB59 within the class Alphaproteobacteria, two factors exert evolutionary pressure and determine this intraspecific diversity: phages and the concentration of P in the environment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carmen Molina-Pardines
- Evolutionary Genomics Group, División de Microbiología, Universidad Miguel Hernández, San Juan, Alicante, Spain
| | - Jose M. Haro-Moreno
- Evolutionary Genomics Group, División de Microbiología, Universidad Miguel Hernández, San Juan, Alicante, Spain
| | - Mario López-Pérez
- Evolutionary Genomics Group, División de Microbiología, Universidad Miguel Hernández, San Juan, Alicante, Spain
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23
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Förster M, Rathmann I, Yüksel M, Power JJ, Maier B. Genome-wide transformation reveals extensive exchange across closely related Bacillus species. Nucleic Acids Res 2023; 51:12352-12366. [PMID: 37971327 PMCID: PMC10711437 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkad1074] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/03/2023] [Revised: 09/07/2023] [Accepted: 11/02/2023] [Indexed: 11/19/2023] Open
Abstract
Bacterial transformation is an important mode of horizontal gene transfer that helps spread genetic material across species boundaries. Yet, the factors that pose barriers to genome-wide cross-species gene transfer are poorly characterized. Here, we develop a replacement accumulation assay to study the effects of genomic distance on transfer dynamics. Using Bacillus subtilis as recipient and various species of the genus Bacillus as donors, we find that the rate of orthologous replacement decreases exponentially with the divergence of their core genomes. We reveal that at least 96% of the B. subtilis core genes are accessible to replacement by alleles from Bacillus spizizenii. For the more distantly related Bacillus atrophaeus, gene replacement events cluster at genomic locations with high sequence identity and preferentially replace ribosomal genes. Orthologous replacement also creates mosaic patterns between donor and recipient genomes, rearranges the genome architecture, and governs gain and loss of accessory genes. We conclude that cross-species gene transfer is dominated by orthologous replacement of core genes which occurs nearly unrestricted between closely related species. At a lower rate, the exchange of accessory genes gives rise to more complex genome dynamics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mona Förster
- Institute for Biological Physics, University of Cologne, Zülpicherstr. 47a, 50674 Köln, Germany
| | - Isabel Rathmann
- Institute for Biological Physics, University of Cologne, Zülpicherstr. 47a, 50674 Köln, Germany
| | - Melih Yüksel
- Institute for Biological Physics, University of Cologne, Zülpicherstr. 47a, 50674 Köln, Germany
| | - Jeffrey J Power
- Institute for Biological Physics, University of Cologne, Zülpicherstr. 47a, 50674 Köln, Germany
| | - Berenike Maier
- Institute for Biological Physics, University of Cologne, Zülpicherstr. 47a, 50674 Köln, Germany
- Center for Molecular Medicine Cologne, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
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24
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Thorell K, Muñoz-Ramírez ZY, Wang D, Sandoval-Motta S, Boscolo Agostini R, Ghirotto S, Torres RC, Falush D, Camargo MC, Rabkin CS. The Helicobacter pylori Genome Project: insights into H. pylori population structure from analysis of a worldwide collection of complete genomes. Nat Commun 2023; 14:8184. [PMID: 38081806 PMCID: PMC10713588 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-43562-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/05/2023] [Accepted: 11/13/2023] [Indexed: 12/18/2023] Open
Abstract
Helicobacter pylori, a dominant member of the gastric microbiota, shares co-evolutionary history with humans. This has led to the development of genetically distinct H. pylori subpopulations associated with the geographic origin of the host and with differential gastric disease risk. Here, we provide insights into H. pylori population structure as a part of the Helicobacter pylori Genome Project (HpGP), a multi-disciplinary initiative aimed at elucidating H. pylori pathogenesis and identifying new therapeutic targets. We collected 1011 well-characterized clinical strains from 50 countries and generated high-quality genome sequences. We analysed core genome diversity and population structure of the HpGP dataset and 255 worldwide reference genomes to outline the ancestral contribution to Eurasian, African, and American populations. We found evidence of substantial contribution of population hpNorthAsia and subpopulation hspUral in Northern European H. pylori. The genomes of H. pylori isolated from northern and southern Indigenous Americans differed in that bacteria isolated in northern Indigenous communities were more similar to North Asian H. pylori while the southern had higher relatedness to hpEastAsia. Notably, we also found a highly clonal yet geographically dispersed North American subpopulation, which is negative for the cag pathogenicity island, and present in 7% of sequenced US genomes. We expect the HpGP dataset and the corresponding strains to become a major asset for H. pylori genomics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kaisa Thorell
- Department of Chemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden.
| | - Zilia Y Muñoz-Ramírez
- Facultad de Ciencias Químicas, Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Chihuahua, México
| | - Difei Wang
- Cancer Genomics Research Laboratory, Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, Frederick, MD, USA
- Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, MD, USA
| | - Santiago Sandoval-Motta
- Instituto Nacional de Medicina Genómica, Ciudad de México, México
- Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia, Cátedras CONACYT, Ciudad de México, México
- Centro de Ciencias de la Complejidad, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad de México, México
| | | | - Silvia Ghirotto
- Department of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy
| | - Roberto C Torres
- Centre for Microbes Development and Health, Institute Pasteur Shanghai, Shanghai, China
| | - Daniel Falush
- Centre for Microbes Development and Health, Institute Pasteur Shanghai, Shanghai, China
| | - M Constanza Camargo
- Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, MD, USA
| | - Charles S Rabkin
- Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, MD, USA
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25
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Mahbub KR, Chénard C, Batinovic S, Petrovski S, Lauro FM, Rahman MH, Megharaj M, Franks AE, Labbate M. Complex interactions between diverse mobile genetic elements drive the evolution of metal-resistant bacterial genomes. Environ Microbiol 2023; 25:3387-3405. [PMID: 37915109 DOI: 10.1111/1462-2920.16532] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/11/2023] [Accepted: 10/20/2023] [Indexed: 11/03/2023]
Abstract
In this study, we compared the genomes of three metal-resistant bacteria isolated from mercury-contaminated soil. We identified diverse and novel MGEs with evidence of multiple LGT events shaping their genomic structure and heavy metal resistance. Among the three metal-resistant strains, Sphingobium sp SA2 and Sphingopyxis sp SE2 were resistant to multiple metals including mercury, cadmium, copper, zinc and lead. Pseudoxanthomonas sp SE1 showed resistance to mercury only. Whole genome sequencing by Illumina and Oxford Nanopore technologies was undertaken to obtain comprehensive genomic data. The Sphingobium and Sphingopyxis strains contained multiple chromosomes and plasmids, whereas the Pseudoxanthomonas strain contained one circular chromosome. Consistent with their metal resistance profiles, the strains of Sphingobium and Sphingopyxis contained a higher quantity of diverse metal resistance genes across their chromosomes and plasmids compared to the single-metal resistant Pseudoxanthomonas SE1. In all three strains, metal resistance genes were principally associated with various novel MGEs including genomic islands (GIs), integrative conjugative elements (ICEs), transposons, insertion sequences (IS), recombinase in trio (RIT) elements and group II introns, indicating their importance in facilitating metal resistance adaptation in a contaminated environment. In the Pseudoxanthomonas strain, metal resistance regions were largely situated on a GI. The chromosomes of the strains of Sphingobium and Sphingopyxis contained multiple metal resistance regions, which were likely acquired by several GIs, ICEs, numerous IS elements, several Tn3 family transposons and RIT elements. Two of the plasmids of Sphingobium were impacted by Tn3 family transposons and ISs likely integrating metal resistance genes. The two plasmids of Sphingopyxis harboured transposons, IS elements, an RIT element and a group II intron. This study provides a comprehensive annotation of complex genomic regions of metal resistance associated with novel MGEs. It highlights the critical importance of LGT in the evolution of metal resistance of bacteria in contaminated environments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Khandaker Rayhan Mahbub
- School of Life Sciences, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, New South Wales, Australia
| | - Caroline Chénard
- Asian School for the Environment, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
| | - Steven Batinovic
- Division of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Yokohama National University, Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan
| | - Steve Petrovski
- Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Microbiology, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia
- Centre for Future Landscapes, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia
| | - Federico M Lauro
- Asian School for the Environment, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
- Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering/Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
- Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute (NEWRI), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
| | - Md Hafizur Rahman
- School of Life Sciences, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, New South Wales, Australia
| | - Mallavarapu Megharaj
- Global Centre for Environmental Remediation, College of Engineering, Science and Environment, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, Australia
- Cooperative Research Centre for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of Environment, The University of Newcastle (UoN), Callaghan, New South Wales, Australia
| | - Ashley E Franks
- Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Microbiology, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia
- Centre for Future Landscapes, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia
| | - Maurizio Labbate
- School of Life Sciences, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, New South Wales, Australia
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26
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Li Z, Selim A, Kuehn S. Statistical prediction of microbial metabolic traits from genomes. PLoS Comput Biol 2023; 19:e1011705. [PMID: 38113208 PMCID: PMC10729968 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1011705] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/16/2023] [Accepted: 11/22/2023] [Indexed: 12/21/2023] Open
Abstract
The metabolic activity of microbial communities is central to their role in biogeochemical cycles, human health, and biotechnology. Despite the abundance of sequencing data characterizing these consortia, it remains a serious challenge to predict microbial metabolic traits from sequencing data alone. Here we culture 96 bacterial isolates individually and assay their ability to grow on 10 distinct compounds as a sole carbon source. Using these data as well as two existing datasets, we show that statistical approaches can accurately predict bacterial carbon utilization traits from genomes. First, we show that classifiers trained on gene content can accurately predict bacterial carbon utilization phenotypes by encoding phylogenetic information. These models substantially outperform predictions made by constraint-based metabolic models automatically constructed from genomes. This result solidifies our current knowledge about the strong connection between phylogeny and metabolic traits. However, phylogeny-based predictions fail to predict traits for taxa that are phylogenetically distant from any strains in the training set. To overcome this we train improved models on gene presence/absence to predict carbon utilization traits from gene content. We show that models that predict carbon utilization traits from gene presence/absence can generalize to taxa that are phylogenetically distant from the training set either by exploiting biochemical information for feature selection or by having sufficiently large datasets. In the latter case, we provide evidence that a statistical approach can identify putatively mechanistic genes involved in metabolic traits. Our study demonstrates the potential power for predicting microbial phenotypes from genotypes using statistical approaches.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zeqian Li
- Center for the Physics of Evolving Systems, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
- Department of Ecology and Evolution, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
- Department of Physics, The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, United States of America
| | - Ahmed Selim
- Graduate Program in Biophysical Sciences, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
| | - Seppe Kuehn
- Center for the Physics of Evolving Systems, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
- Department of Ecology and Evolution, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
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27
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Zhong L, Zhang M, Sun L, Yang Y, Wang B, Yang H, Shen Q, Xia Y, Cui J, Hang H, Ren Y, Pang B, Deng X, Zhan Y, Li H, Zhou Z. Distributed genotyping and clustering of Neisseria strains reveal continual emergence of epidemic meningococcus over a century. Nat Commun 2023; 14:7706. [PMID: 38001084 PMCID: PMC10673917 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-43528-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/04/2023] [Accepted: 11/13/2023] [Indexed: 11/26/2023] Open
Abstract
Core genome multilocus sequence typing (cgMLST) is commonly used to classify bacterial strains into different types, for taxonomical and epidemiological applications. However, cgMLST schemes require central databases for the nomenclature of new alleles and sequence types, which must be synchronized worldwide and involve increasingly intensive calculation and storage demands. Here, we describe a distributed cgMLST (dcgMLST) scheme that does not require a central database of allelic sequences and apply it to study evolutionary patterns of epidemic and endemic strains of the genus Neisseria. We classify 69,994 worldwide Neisseria strains into multi-level clusters that assign species, lineages, and local disease outbreaks. We divide Neisseria meningitidis into 168 endemic lineages and three epidemic lineages responsible for at least 9 epidemics in the past century. According to our analyses, the epidemic and endemic lineages experienced very different population dynamics in the past 100 years. Epidemic lineages repetitively emerged from endemic lineages, disseminated worldwide, and apparently disappeared rapidly afterward. We propose a stepwise model for the evolutionary trajectory of epidemic lineages in Neisseria, and expect that the development of similar dcgMLST schemes will facilitate epidemiological studies of other bacterial pathogens.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ling Zhong
- Pasteurien College, Suzhou Medical College, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, China
- Key Laboratory of Alkene-Carbon Fibers-Based Technology & Application for Detection of Major Infectious Diseases, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, China
| | - Menghan Zhang
- Suzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Suzhou, 215004, China
| | - Libing Sun
- Department of Pathology, East District of Suzhou Municipal Hospital, Suzhou, 215000, China
| | - Yu Yang
- Pasteurien College, Suzhou Medical College, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, China
| | - Bo Wang
- Suzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Suzhou, 215004, China
| | - Haibing Yang
- Suzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Suzhou, 215004, China
| | - Qiang Shen
- Suzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Suzhou, 215004, China
| | - Yu Xia
- Suzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Suzhou, 215004, China
| | - Jiarui Cui
- Suzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Suzhou, 215004, China
| | - Hui Hang
- Suzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Suzhou, 215004, China
| | - Yi Ren
- Iotabiome Biotechnology Inc, Suzhou, 215000, China
| | - Bo Pang
- National Key Laboratory of Intelligent Tracking and Forecasting for Infectious Diseases, National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, China
| | - Xiangyu Deng
- Center for Food Safety, University of Georgia, Griffin, GA, USA
| | - Yahui Zhan
- Suzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Suzhou, 215004, China.
| | - Heng Li
- Pasteurien College, Suzhou Medical College, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, China.
- Key Laboratory of Alkene-Carbon Fibers-Based Technology & Application for Detection of Major Infectious Diseases, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, China.
- Suzhou Key Laboratory of Pathogen Bioscience and Anti-infective Medicine, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, China.
| | - Zhemin Zhou
- Pasteurien College, Suzhou Medical College, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, China.
- Key Laboratory of Alkene-Carbon Fibers-Based Technology & Application for Detection of Major Infectious Diseases, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, China.
- National Key Laboratory of Intelligent Tracking and Forecasting for Infectious Diseases, National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, China.
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28
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Toorop MMA, Kraakman MEM, Hoogendijk IV, van Prehn J, Claas ECJ, Wessels E, Boers SA. A core-genome multilocus sequence typing scheme for the detection of genetically related Streptococcus pyogenes clusters. J Clin Microbiol 2023; 61:e0055823. [PMID: 37815371 PMCID: PMC10662357 DOI: 10.1128/jcm.00558-23] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/04/2023] [Accepted: 08/07/2023] [Indexed: 10/11/2023] Open
Abstract
The recently observed increase in invasive Streptococcus pyogenes infections causes concern in Europe. However, conventional molecular typing methods lack discriminatory power to aid investigations of outbreaks caused by S. pyogenes. Therefore, there is an urgent need for high-resolution molecular typing methods to assess genetic relatedness between S. pyogenes isolates. In the current study, we aimed to develop a novel high-resolution core-genome multilocus sequence typing (cgMLST) scheme for S. pyogenes and compared its discriminatory power to conventional molecular typing methods. The cgMLST scheme was designed with the commercial Ridom SeqSphere+ software package. To define a cluster threshold, the scheme was evaluated using publicly available data from nine defined S. pyogenes outbreaks in the United Kingdom. The cgMLST scheme was then applied to 23 isolates from a suspected S. pyogenes outbreak and 117 S. pyogenes surveillance isolates both from the Netherlands. MLST and emm-typing results were used for comparison to cgMLST results. The allelic differences between isolates from defined outbreaks ranged between 6 and 31 for isolates with the same emm-type, resulting in a proposed cluster threshold of <5 allelic differences out of 1,095 target loci. Seven out of twenty-three (30%) isolates from the suspected outbreak had an allelic difference of <2, thereby identifying a potential cluster that could not be linked to other isolates. The proposed cgMLST scheme shows a higher discriminatory ability when compared to conventional typing methods. The rapid and simple analysis workflow allows for extended detection of clusters of potential outbreak isolates and surveillance and may facilitate the sharing of sequencing results between (inter)national laboratories.
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Affiliation(s)
- Myrthe M. A. Toorop
- Department of Medical Microbiology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, the Netherlands
| | - Margriet E. M. Kraakman
- Department of Medical Microbiology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, the Netherlands
| | - Irene V. Hoogendijk
- Department of Medical Microbiology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, the Netherlands
| | - Joffrey van Prehn
- Department of Medical Microbiology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, the Netherlands
| | - Eric C. J. Claas
- Department of Medical Microbiology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, the Netherlands
| | - Els Wessels
- Department of Medical Microbiology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, the Netherlands
| | - Stefan A. Boers
- Department of Medical Microbiology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, the Netherlands
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29
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Guesdon G, Gourgues G, Rideau F, Ipoutcha T, Manso-Silván L, Jules M, Sirand-Pugnet P, Blanchard A, Lartigue C. Combining Fusion of Cells with CRISPR-Cas9 Editing for the Cloning of Large DNA Fragments or Complete Bacterial Genomes in Yeast. ACS Synth Biol 2023; 12:3252-3266. [PMID: 37843014 PMCID: PMC10662353 DOI: 10.1021/acssynbio.3c00248] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/21/2023] [Indexed: 10/17/2023]
Abstract
The genetic engineering of genome fragments larger than 100 kbp is challenging and requires both specific methods and cloning hosts. The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is considered as a host of choice for cloning and engineering whole or partial genomes from viruses, bacteria, and algae. Several methods are now available to perform these manipulations, each with its own limitations. In order to extend the range of yeast cloning strategies, a new approach combining two already described methods, Fusion cloning and CReasPy-Cloning, was developed. The CReasPy-Fusion method allows the simultaneous cloning and engineering of megabase-sized genomes in yeast by the fusion of bacterial cells with yeast spheroplasts carrying the CRISPR-Cas9 system. With this new approach, we demonstrate the feasibility of cloning and editing whole genomes from several Mycoplasma species belonging to different phylogenetic groups. We also show that CReasPy-Fusion allows the capture of large genome fragments with high efficacy, resulting in the successful cloning of selected loci in yeast. We finally identify bacterial nuclease encoding genes as barriers for CReasPy-Fusion by showing that their removal from the donor genome improves the cloning efficacy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gabrielle Guesdon
- Univ.
Bordeaux, INRAE, Biologie du Fruit et Pathologie, UMR 1332, F-33140 Villenave
d’Ornon, France
| | - Géraldine Gourgues
- Univ.
Bordeaux, INRAE, Biologie du Fruit et Pathologie, UMR 1332, F-33140 Villenave
d’Ornon, France
| | - Fabien Rideau
- Univ.
Bordeaux, INRAE, Biologie du Fruit et Pathologie, UMR 1332, F-33140 Villenave
d’Ornon, France
| | - Thomas Ipoutcha
- Univ.
Bordeaux, INRAE, Biologie du Fruit et Pathologie, UMR 1332, F-33140 Villenave
d’Ornon, France
| | - Lucía Manso-Silván
- CIRAD,
UMR ASTRE, F-34398 Montpellier, France
- ASTRE,
Univ. Montpellier, CIRAD, INRAE, F-34398 Montpellier, France
| | - Matthieu Jules
- Université
Paris-Saclay, INRAE, AgroParisTech, Micalis Institute, F-78350 Jouy-en-Josas, France
| | - Pascal Sirand-Pugnet
- Univ.
Bordeaux, INRAE, Biologie du Fruit et Pathologie, UMR 1332, F-33140 Villenave
d’Ornon, France
| | - Alain Blanchard
- Univ.
Bordeaux, INRAE, Biologie du Fruit et Pathologie, UMR 1332, F-33140 Villenave
d’Ornon, France
| | - Carole Lartigue
- Univ.
Bordeaux, INRAE, Biologie du Fruit et Pathologie, UMR 1332, F-33140 Villenave
d’Ornon, France
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30
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Wang C, Yu QY, Ji NN, Zheng Y, Taylor JW, Guo LD, Gao C. Bacterial genome size and gene functional diversity negatively correlate with taxonomic diversity along a pH gradient. Nat Commun 2023; 14:7437. [PMID: 37978289 PMCID: PMC10656551 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-43297-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/06/2023] [Accepted: 11/06/2023] [Indexed: 11/19/2023] Open
Abstract
Bacterial gene repertoires reflect adaptive strategies, contribute to ecosystem functioning and are limited by genome size. However, gene functional diversity does not necessarily correlate with taxonomic diversity because average genome size may vary by community. Here, we analyse gene functional diversity (by shotgun metagenomics) and taxonomic diversity (by 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing) to investigate soil bacterial communities along a natural pH gradient in 12 tropical, subtropical, and temperate forests. We find that bacterial average genome size and gene functional diversity decrease, whereas taxonomic diversity increases, as soil pH rises from acid to neutral; as a result, bacterial taxonomic and functional diversity are negatively correlated. The gene repertoire of acid-adapted oligotrophs is enriched in functions of signal transduction, cell motility, secretion system, and degradation of complex compounds, while that of neutral pH-adapted copiotrophs is enriched in functions of energy metabolism and membrane transport. Our results indicate that a mismatch between taxonomic and functional diversity can arise when environmental factors (such as pH) select for adaptive strategies that affect genome size distributions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cong Wang
- State Key Laboratory of Mycology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100101, Beijing, China
- College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049, Beijing, China
| | - Qing-Yi Yu
- State Key Laboratory of Mycology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100101, Beijing, China
- College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049, Beijing, China
| | - Niu-Niu Ji
- State Key Laboratory of Mycology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100101, Beijing, China
- Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, 61801, USA
| | - Yong Zheng
- State Key Laboratory of Mycology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100101, Beijing, China
- School of Geographical Sciences, Fujian Normal University, 350007, Fuzhou, China
| | - John W Taylor
- Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA
| | - Liang-Dong Guo
- State Key Laboratory of Mycology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100101, Beijing, China.
- College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049, Beijing, China.
| | - Cheng Gao
- State Key Laboratory of Mycology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100101, Beijing, China.
- College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049, Beijing, China.
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31
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Wang T, Lu Y. Toward Minimal Transcription-Translation Machinery. ACS Synth Biol 2023; 12:3312-3327. [PMID: 37852206 DOI: 10.1021/acssynbio.3c00324] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/20/2023]
Abstract
With the advantages of simple genetic composition, low metabolic background, low energy waste, and high genetic stability, genome-reduced strains, as promising functional chassis, have become an intensive direction for constructing potent biosynthesis factories. Herein, an innovative Genome-Reduced strain-based Active Cell-free Easy-to-make-protein (GRACE) system is built as minimal transcription-translation machinery. In this study, two Escherichia coli genome-reduced strains, ΔW3110 and ΔMG1655, with genome reduction of 11.53% and 37.85%, are fused with the cell-free transcription-translation (CFTT) system. The GRACE systems perform better than the corresponding CFTT systems derived from their parental strains in representative valuable applications, such as the expression and solubilization of membrane proteins or protein polymers, biosensing of inorganic or organic molecules based on different principles, and unnatural amino acid embedding. Obviously, the GRACE system has provided a brand-new enabling platform for cell-free transcription-translation basic and applied studies and also would inspire the potential of genome-reduced strains for versatile applications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ting Wang
- Key Laboratory of Industrial Biocatalysis, Ministry of Education, Department of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Yuan Lu
- Key Laboratory of Industrial Biocatalysis, Ministry of Education, Department of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
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32
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Tian R, Imanian B. VBCG: 20 validated bacterial core genes for phylogenomic analysis with high fidelity and resolution. Microbiome 2023; 11:247. [PMID: 37936197 PMCID: PMC10631056 DOI: 10.1186/s40168-023-01705-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/13/2023] [Accepted: 10/18/2023] [Indexed: 11/09/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Phylogenomic analysis has become an inseparable part of studies of bacterial diversity and evolution, and many different bacterial core genes have been collated and used for phylogenomic tree reconstruction. However, these genes have been selected based on their presence and single-copy ratio in all bacterial genomes, leaving out the gene's 'phylogenetic fidelity' unexamined. RESULTS From 30,522 complete genomes covering 11,262 species, we examined 148 bacterial core genes that have been previously used for phylogenomic analysis. In addition to the gene presence and single-copy rations, we evaluated the gene's phylogenetic fidelity by comparing each gene's phylogeny with its corresponding 16S rRNA gene tree. Out of the 148 bacterial genes, 20 validated bacterial core genes (VBCG) were selected as the core gene set with the highest bacterial phylogenetic fidelity. Compared to the larger gene set, the 20-gene core set resulted in more species having all genes present and fewer species with missing data, thereby enhancing the accuracy of phylogenomic analysis. Using Escherichia coli strains as examples of prominent bacterial foodborne pathogens, we demonstrated that the 20 VBCG produced phylogenies with higher fidelity and resolution at species and strain levels while 16S rRNA gene tree alone could not. CONCLUSION The 20 validated core gene set improves the fidelity and speed of phylogenomic analysis. Among other uses, this tool improves our ability to explore the evolution, typing and tracking of bacterial strains, such as human pathogens. We have developed a Python pipeline and a desktop graphic app (available on GitHub) for users to perform phylogenomic analysis with high fidelity and resolution. Video Abstract.
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Affiliation(s)
- Renmao Tian
- Institute for Food Safety and Health, Illinois Institute of Technology, Bedford Park, IL, 60501, USA
| | - Behzad Imanian
- Institute for Food Safety and Health, Illinois Institute of Technology, Bedford Park, IL, 60501, USA.
- Food Science and Nutrition Department, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL, 60616, USA.
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33
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You L, Lv R, Jin H, Ma T, Zhao Z, Kwok LY, Sun Z. A large-scale comparative genomics study reveals niche-driven and within-sample intra-species functional diversification in Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus. Food Res Int 2023; 173:113446. [PMID: 37803772 DOI: 10.1016/j.foodres.2023.113446] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/04/2023] [Revised: 09/05/2023] [Accepted: 09/09/2023] [Indexed: 10/08/2023]
Abstract
Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus (L. rhamnosus) is widely recognized as a probiotic species, and it exists in a variety of environments including host gut and dairy products. This work aimed at conducting a large-scale comparative genomics analysis of 384 L. rhamnosus genomes (257 whole-sequence or metagenomic-assembled genomes from gut-associated isolates [122 and 135 retrieved from the UHGG and NCBI databases, respectively] and 127 genomes from dairy isolates [34 from the NCBI database; 93 isolated from a cheese sample and sequenced here]). Our results showed that L. rhamnosus had a large and open pan-genome (15,253 pan-genes identified from all 384 genomes; 15,028 pan-genes if the 93 cheese-originated isolates were excluded). The core-gene phylogenetic tree constructed from the 384 L. rhamnosus genomes comprised five phylogenetic branches, with a random distribution of dairy and gut-associated isolates/genomes across the tree. No significant difference was identified in the overall profile of metabolism-related genes between dairy and gut-associated genomes; however, notably, the gut-associated strains/isolates contained more genes coding for specific metabolic pathways and carbohydrate-active enzymes, e.g., lacto-N-biosidase (EC 3.2.1.140; GT20) and lacto-N-biose phosphorylase/galacto-N-biose phosphorylase (EC 2.4.1.211; GH112). Further, we found that there was obvious intra-species diversification of the 93 cheese-originated L. rhamnosus isolates, forming three clades (Clades A, B, and C) in the reconstructed core-gene phylogenetic tree. There were numerous single nucleotide variations (over 10,000) across the three clades. Moreover, significant differences were observed in the content of metabolism-related genes across clades (p < 0.05, Adonis test), characterized by the enrichment in glycoside hydrolases in Clade C and the possession of unique metabolic pathways in each clade. These results implicated genomics/functional diversification of L. rhamnosus in a single food matrix and niche-driven adaptive evolution of isolates from dairy and host gut-associated origins. Our study shed insights into the selection of candidate strains for food industry applications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lijun You
- Inner Mongolia Key Laboratory of Dairy Biotechnology and Engineering, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China; Key Laboratory of Dairy Products Processing, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China; Key Laboratory of Dairy Biotechnology and Engineering, Ministry of Education, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China
| | - Ruirui Lv
- Inner Mongolia Key Laboratory of Dairy Biotechnology and Engineering, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China; Key Laboratory of Dairy Products Processing, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China; Key Laboratory of Dairy Biotechnology and Engineering, Ministry of Education, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China
| | - Hao Jin
- Inner Mongolia Key Laboratory of Dairy Biotechnology and Engineering, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China; Key Laboratory of Dairy Products Processing, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China; Key Laboratory of Dairy Biotechnology and Engineering, Ministry of Education, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China
| | - Teng Ma
- Inner Mongolia Key Laboratory of Dairy Biotechnology and Engineering, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China; Key Laboratory of Dairy Products Processing, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China; Key Laboratory of Dairy Biotechnology and Engineering, Ministry of Education, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China
| | - Zhixin Zhao
- Inner Mongolia Key Laboratory of Dairy Biotechnology and Engineering, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China; Key Laboratory of Dairy Products Processing, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China; Key Laboratory of Dairy Biotechnology and Engineering, Ministry of Education, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China
| | - Lai-Yu Kwok
- Inner Mongolia Key Laboratory of Dairy Biotechnology and Engineering, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China; Key Laboratory of Dairy Products Processing, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China; Key Laboratory of Dairy Biotechnology and Engineering, Ministry of Education, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China
| | - Zhihong Sun
- Inner Mongolia Key Laboratory of Dairy Biotechnology and Engineering, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China; Key Laboratory of Dairy Products Processing, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China; Key Laboratory of Dairy Biotechnology and Engineering, Ministry of Education, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China.
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Ben Moussa H, Pédron J, Hugouvieux-Cotte-Pattat N, Barny MA. Two species with a peculiar evolution within the genus Pectobacterium suggest adaptation to a new environmental niche. Environ Microbiol 2023; 25:2465-2480. [PMID: 37550252 DOI: 10.1111/1462-2920.16479] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/14/2023] [Accepted: 07/20/2023] [Indexed: 08/09/2023]
Abstract
Historically, research on Soft Rot Pectobacteriacea (SRP) has focused on economically important crops and ornamentals and knowledge of these bacteria outside the plant context remains poorly investigated. Recently, two closely related species Pectobacterium aquaticum and Pectobacterium quasiaquaticum were isolated from water and have not been isolated from any plant yet. To identify the distinctive characteristics of these two species, we performed a comparative genomic analysis of 80 genomes representing 19 Pectobacterium species and performed an evolutionary reconstruction. Both water species underwent a reduction in genome size associated with a high pseudogene content. A high gene loss was predicted at the emergence of both species. Among the 199 gene families missing from both P. aquaticum and P. quasiaquaticum genomes but present in at least 80% of other Pectobacterium genomes, COG analysis identified many genes involved in nutrient transport systems. In addition, many type II secreted proteins were also missing in both species. Phenotypic analysis revealed that both species had reduced pectinolytic activity, a biofilm formation defect, were highly motile and had reduced virulence on several plants. These genomic and phenotypic data suggest that the ecological niche of P. aquaticum and P. quasiaquaticum may differ from that of other Pectobacterium species.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hajar Ben Moussa
- Sorbonne Université, INRAE, IRD, CNRS, UPEC, UMR 7618 Institut d'Écologie et des Sciences de l'Environnement de Paris, Paris, France
| | - Jacques Pédron
- Sorbonne Université, INRAE, IRD, CNRS, UPEC, UMR 7618 Institut d'Écologie et des Sciences de l'Environnement de Paris, Paris, France
| | | | - Marie-Anne Barny
- Sorbonne Université, INRAE, IRD, CNRS, UPEC, UMR 7618 Institut d'Écologie et des Sciences de l'Environnement de Paris, Paris, France
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Abad L, Gauthier CH, Florian I, Jacobs-Sera D, Hatfull GF. The heterogenous and diverse population of prophages in Mycobacterium genomes. mSystems 2023; 8:e0044623. [PMID: 37791767 PMCID: PMC10654092 DOI: 10.1128/msystems.00446-23] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/04/2023] [Accepted: 07/18/2023] [Indexed: 10/05/2023] Open
Abstract
IMPORTANCE Mycobacterium species include several human pathogens and mycobacteriophages show potential for therapeutic use to control Mycobacterium infections. However, phage infection profiles vary greatly among Mycobacterium abscessus clinical isolates and phage therapies must be personalized for individual patients. Mycobacterium phage susceptibility is likely determined primarily by accessory parts of bacterial genomes, and we have identified the prophage and phage-related genomic regions across sequenced Mycobacterium strains. The prophages are numerous and diverse, especially in M. abscessus genomes, and provide a potentially rich reservoir of new viruses that can be propagated lytically and used to expand the repertoire of therapeutically useful phages.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lawrence Abad
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Christian H. Gauthier
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Isabella Florian
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Deborah Jacobs-Sera
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Graham F. Hatfull
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
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36
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Uribe G, Salipante SJ, Curtis L, Lieberman JA, Kurosawa K, Cookson BT, Hoogestraat D, Stewart MK, Olmstead T, Bourassa L. Evaluation of Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) as a control measure for nosocomial outbreak investigations. J Clin Microbiol 2023; 61:e0034723. [PMID: 37787542 PMCID: PMC10595069 DOI: 10.1128/jcm.00347-23] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/21/2023] [Accepted: 06/29/2023] [Indexed: 10/04/2023] Open
Abstract
Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) provides greater resolution than other molecular epidemiology strategies and is emerging as a new gold standard approach for microbial strain typing. The Bruker IR Biotyper is designed as a screening tool to identify bacterial isolates that require WGS to establish accurate relationships, but its performance and utility in nosocomial outbreak investigations have not been thoroughly investigated. Here, we evaluated the IR Biotyper by retrospectively examining isolates tested by WGS during investigations of potential nosocomial transmission events or outbreaks. Ninety-eight clinical isolates from 14 different outbreak investigations were examined: three collections of Acinetobacter baumannii (n = 2, n = 9, n = 5 isolates in each collection), one of Escherichia coli (n = 16), two of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (n = 2 and n = 5), two of Serratia marcescens (n = 9 and n = 7), five of Staphylococcus aureus (n = 8, n = 4, n = 3, n = 3, n = 17), and one of Stenotrophomonas maltophilia (n = 8). Linear regression demonstrated a weak, positive correlation between the number of pairwise genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and IR Biotyper spectral distance values for Gram-positive (r = 0.43, P ≤ 0.0001), Gram-negative (r = 0.1554, P = 0.0639), and all organisms combined (r = 0.342, P ≤ 0.0001). Overall, the IR Biotyper had a positive predictive value (PPV) of 55.81% for identifying strains that were closely related by genomic identity, but a negative predictive value (NPV) of 86.79% for identifying unrelated isolates. When experimentally adjusted cut-offs were applied to A. baumannii, P. aeruginosa, and E. coli, the PPV was 62% for identifying strains that were closely related and the NPV was 100% for identifying unrelated isolates. Implementation of the IR Biotyper as a screening tool in this cohort would have reduced the number of Gram-negative isolates requiring further WGS analysis by 50% and would reduce the number of S. aureus isolates needing WGS resolution by 48%.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gabriela Uribe
- Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
| | - Stephen J. Salipante
- Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
| | - Lauren Curtis
- Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
| | - Joshua A. Lieberman
- Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
| | - Kyoko Kurosawa
- Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
| | - Brad T. Cookson
- Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
| | - Daniel Hoogestraat
- Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
| | - Mary K. Stewart
- Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
| | - Tessa Olmstead
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
| | - Lori Bourassa
- Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
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Trouillon J, Doubleday PF, Sauer U. Genomic footprinting uncovers global transcription factor responses to amino acids in Escherichia coli. Cell Syst 2023; 14:860-871.e4. [PMID: 37820729 DOI: 10.1016/j.cels.2023.09.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/27/2023] [Revised: 09/01/2023] [Accepted: 09/19/2023] [Indexed: 10/13/2023]
Abstract
Our knowledge of transcriptional responses to changes in nutrient availability comes primarily from few well-studied transcription factors (TFs), often lacking an unbiased genome-wide perspective. Leveraging recent advances allowing bacterial genomic footprinting, we comprehensively mapped the genome-wide regulatory responses of Escherichia coli to exogenous leucine, methionine, alanine, and lysine. The global TF Lrp was found to individually sense three amino acids and mount three different target gene responses. Overall, 531 genes had altered RNA polymerase occupancy, and 32 TFs responded directly or indirectly to the presence of amino acids, including regulators of membrane and osmotic pressure homeostasis. About 70% of the detected TF-DNA interactions had not been reported before. We thus identified 682 previously unknown TF-binding locations, for a subset of which the involved TFs were identified by affinity purification. This comprehensive map of amino acid regulation illustrates the incompleteness of the known transcriptional regulation network, even in E. coli.
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Affiliation(s)
- Julian Trouillon
- Institute of Molecular Systems Biology, ETH Zürich, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland
| | - Peter F Doubleday
- Institute of Molecular Systems Biology, ETH Zürich, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland
| | - Uwe Sauer
- Institute of Molecular Systems Biology, ETH Zürich, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
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Zhang LY, Tian B, Huang YH, Gu B, Ju P, Luo Y, Tang J, Wang L. Classification and prediction of Klebsiella pneumoniae strains with different MLST allelic profiles via SERS spectral analysis. PeerJ 2023; 11:e16161. [PMID: 37780376 PMCID: PMC10538299 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.16161] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/01/2023] [Accepted: 09/01/2023] [Indexed: 10/03/2023] Open
Abstract
The Gram-negative non-motile Klebsiella pneuomoniae is currently a major cause of hospital-acquired (HA) and community-acquired (CA) infections, leading to great public health concern globally, while rapid identification and accurate tracing of the pathogenic bacterium is essential in facilitating monitoring and controlling of K. pneumoniae outbreak and dissemination. Multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) is a commonly used typing approach with low cost that is able to distinguish bacterial isolates based on the allelic profiles of several housekeeping genes, despite low resolution and labor intensity of the method. Core-genome MLST scheme (cgMLST) is recently proposed to sub-type and monitor outbreaks of bacterial strains with high resolution and reliability, which uses hundreds or thousands of genes conserved in all or most members of the species. However, the method is complex and requires whole genome sequencing of bacterial strains with high costs. Therefore, it is urgently needed to develop novel methods with high resolution and low cost for bacterial typing. Surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is a rapid, sensitive and cheap method for bacterial identification. Previous studies confirmed that classification and prediction of bacterial strains via SERS spectral analysis correlated well with MLST typing results. However, there is currently no similar comparative analysis in K. pneumoniae strains. In this pilot study, 16 K. pneumoniae strains with different sequencing typings (STs) were selected and a phylogenetic tree was constructed based on core genome analysis. SERS spectra (N = 45/each strain) were generated for all the K. pneumoniae strains, which were then comparatively classified and predicted via six representative machine learning (ML) algorithms. According to the results, SERS technique coupled with the ML algorithm support vector machine (SVM) could achieve the highest accuracy (5-Fold Cross Validation = 100%) in terms of differentiating and predicting all the K. pneumoniae strains that were consistent to corresponding MLSTs. In sum, we show in this pilot study that the SERS-SVM based method is able to accurately predict K. pneumoniae MLST types, which has the application potential in clinical settings for tracing dissemination and controlling outbreak of K. pneumoniae in hospitals and communities with low costs and high rapidity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Li-Yan Zhang
- Laboratory Medicine, Ganzhou Municipal Hospital, Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital Ganzhou Hospital, Ganzhou, Guangdong Province, China
- Laboratory Medicine, Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital, Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China
| | - Benshun Tian
- Laboratory Medicine, Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital, Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China
| | - Yuan-Hong Huang
- Laboratory Medicine, Ganzhou Municipal Hospital, Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital Ganzhou Hospital, Ganzhou, Guangdong Province, China
| | - Bin Gu
- Laboratory Medicine, Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital, Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China
| | - Pei Ju
- School of Life Sciences, Xuzhou Medical University, Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, China
| | - Yanfei Luo
- Laboratory Medicine, Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital, Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China
| | - Jiawei Tang
- Laboratory Medicine, Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital, Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China
| | - Liang Wang
- Laboratory Medicine, Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital, Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China
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Audrey B, Cellier N, White F, Jacques PÉ, Burrus V. A systematic approach to classify and characterize genomic islands driven by conjugative mobility using protein signatures. Nucleic Acids Res 2023; 51:8402-8412. [PMID: 37526274 PMCID: PMC10484663 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkad644] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/14/2022] [Revised: 07/17/2023] [Accepted: 07/21/2023] [Indexed: 08/02/2023] Open
Abstract
Genomic islands (GIs) play a crucial role in the spread of antibiotic resistance, virulence factors and antiviral defense systems in a broad range of bacterial species. However, the characterization and classification of GIs are challenging due to their relatively small size and considerable genetic diversity. Predicting their intercellular mobility is of utmost importance in the context of the emerging crisis of multidrug resistance. Here, we propose a large-scale classification method to categorize GIs according to their mobility profile and, subsequently, analyze their gene cargo. We based our classification decision scheme on a collection of mobility protein motif definitions available in publicly accessible databases. Our results show that the size distribution of GI classes correlates with their respective structure and complexity. Self-transmissible GIs are usually the largest, except in Bacillota and Actinomycetota, accumulate antibiotic and phage resistance genes, and favour the use of a tyrosine recombinase to insert into a host's replicon. Non-mobilizable GIs tend to use a DDE transposase instead. Finally, although tRNA genes are more frequently targeted as insertion sites by GIs encoding a tyrosine recombinase, most GIs insert in a protein-encoding gene. This study is a stepping stone toward a better characterization of mobile GIs in bacterial genomes and their mechanism of mobility.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bioteau Audrey
- Département de biologie, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada
| | | | - Frédérique White
- Département de biologie, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada
| | | | - Vincent Burrus
- Département de biologie, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada
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40
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Jiang Z, Li D, Liu Z, Dong X, Liu Z, Cui D, Yan S, Zhu L. Genomic typing and virulence gene profile analysis of Salmonella Derby from different sources. Microb Pathog 2023; 182:106248. [PMID: 37423493 DOI: 10.1016/j.micpath.2023.106248] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/15/2023] [Revised: 07/07/2023] [Accepted: 07/07/2023] [Indexed: 07/11/2023]
Abstract
Salmonella enterica serovar Derby (S. Derby) is one of the most common Salmonella serovars which can infect poultry, swine, and humans. With the reduction of the sequencing cost and the improvement of sequencing technology, whole genome sequencing (WGS) has become an important method for bacterial determination, molecular investigation, and pathogenic tracing analysis. In this study, we investigated S. Derby isolates from different sources in China using in-silico multilocus sequence typing (MLST), core genome MLST (cgMLST) and whole genome MLST (wgMLST) analysis based on WGS. The results showed that 21 S. Derby strains were divided into 3 STs using MLST analysis, including ST40 (n = 19, accounting for 90.48%), ST71 (n = 1, accounting for 4.76%) and ST8016 (n = 1, accounting for 4.76%). cgMLST and wgMLST analysis categorized the tested strains into 13 cgSTs and 21 wgSTs, respectively. The minimum spanning trees of cgMLST and wgMLST both divided these strains into 3 clusters and 4 singletons. In addition, virulence gene profiles of S. Derby isolates were also analyzed, and a total of 174 virulence genes belonged to 8 categories were identified. In summary, we studied genomic typing, phylogenetic relationship and virulence gene profiles of S. Derby strains from different sources in China. These findings were beneficial for the epidemiology and pathogenesis of Salmonella.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhaoxu Jiang
- School of Bioengineering, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan, 250353, China
| | - Donghui Li
- School of Bioengineering, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan, 250353, China
| | - Zhenhai Liu
- School of Bioengineering, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan, 250353, China
| | - Xiaorui Dong
- School of Bioengineering, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan, 250353, China
| | - Zijun Liu
- School of Bioengineering, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan, 250353, China
| | - Daoshi Cui
- Qilu Animal Health Products Co., Ltd, Jinan, 250100, China
| | - Shigan Yan
- School of Bioengineering, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan, 250353, China.
| | - Liping Zhu
- School of Bioengineering, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan, 250353, China.
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41
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Nguyen M, Elmore Z, Ihle C, Moen FS, Slater AD, Turner BN, Parrello B, Best AA, Davis JJ. Predicting variable gene content in Escherichia coli using conserved genes. mSystems 2023; 8:e0005823. [PMID: 37314210 PMCID: PMC10469788 DOI: 10.1128/msystems.00058-23] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/17/2023] [Accepted: 04/25/2023] [Indexed: 06/15/2023] Open
Abstract
Having the ability to predict the protein-encoding gene content of an incomplete genome or metagenome-assembled genome is important for a variety of bioinformatic tasks. In this study, as a proof of concept, we built machine learning classifiers for predicting variable gene content in Escherichia coli genomes using only the nucleotide k-mers from a set of 100 conserved genes as features. Protein families were used to define orthologs, and a single classifier was built for predicting the presence or absence of each protein family occurring in 10%-90% of all E. coli genomes. The resulting set of 3,259 extreme gradient boosting classifiers had a per-genome average macro F1 score of 0.944 [0.943-0.945, 95% CI]. We show that the F1 scores are stable across multi-locus sequence types and that the trend can be recapitulated by sampling a smaller number of core genes or diverse input genomes. Surprisingly, the presence or absence of poorly annotated proteins, including "hypothetical proteins" was accurately predicted (F1 = 0.902 [0.898-0.906, 95% CI]). Models for proteins with horizontal gene transfer-related functions had slightly lower F1 scores but were still accurate (F1s = 0.895, 0.872, 0.824, and 0.841 for transposon, phage, plasmid, and antimicrobial resistance-related functions, respectively). Finally, using a holdout set of 419 diverse E. coli genomes that were isolated from freshwater environmental sources, we observed an average per-genome F1 score of 0.880 [0.876-0.883, 95% CI], demonstrating the extensibility of the models. Overall, this study provides a framework for predicting variable gene content using a limited amount of input sequence data. IMPORTANCE Having the ability to predict the protein-encoding gene content of a genome is important for assessing genome quality, binning genomes from shotgun metagenomic assemblies, and assessing risk due to the presence of antimicrobial resistance and other virulence genes. In this study, we built a set of binary classifiers for predicting the presence or absence of variable genes occurring in 10%-90% of all publicly available E. coli genomes. Overall, the results show that a large portion of the E. coli variable gene content can be predicted with high accuracy, including genes with functions relating to horizontal gene transfer. This study offers a strategy for predicting gene content using limited input sequence data.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marcus Nguyen
- Data Science and Learning Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, Illinois, USA
- Consortium for Advanced Science and Engineering, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
| | - Zachary Elmore
- Biology Department, Hope College, Holland, Michigan, USA
| | - Clay Ihle
- Biology Department, Hope College, Holland, Michigan, USA
| | | | - Adam D. Slater
- Biology Department, Hope College, Holland, Michigan, USA
| | | | - Bruce Parrello
- Consortium for Advanced Science and Engineering, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
- Fellowship for Interpretation of Genomes, Burr Ridge, Illinois, USA
| | - Aaron A. Best
- Biology Department, Hope College, Holland, Michigan, USA
| | - James J. Davis
- Data Science and Learning Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, Illinois, USA
- Consortium for Advanced Science and Engineering, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
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Hong YW, Jang GI, Kim SY, Choi JY, Kim BJ, Shin DY, Kang JK, Kim SK, Cho BC, Hwang CY. Roseovarius pelagicus sp. nov., a facultatively anaerobic bacterium with potential for degrading polypropylene, isolated from Arctic seawater. Int J Syst Evol Microbiol 2023; 73. [PMID: 37561014 DOI: 10.1099/ijsem.0.005999] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 08/11/2023] Open
Abstract
A Gram-stain-negative, facultatively anaerobic, non-motile, rod-shaped bacterial strain, designated HL-MP18T, was isolated from Arctic seawater after a prolonged incubation employing polypropylene as the sole carbon source. Phylogenetic analyses of the 16S rRNA gene sequence revealed that strain HL-MP18T was affiliated to the genus Roseovarius with close relatives Roseovarius carneus LXJ103T (96.8 %) and Roseovarius litorisediminis KCTC 32327T (96.5 %). The complete genome sequence of strain HL-MP18T comprised a circular chromosome of 3.86 Mbp and two circular plasmids of 0.17 and 0.24 Mbp. Genomic comparisons based on average nucleotide identity and digital DNA-DNA hybridization showed that strain HL-MP18T was consistently discriminated from its closely related taxa in the genus Roseovarius. Strain HL-MP18T showed optimal growth at 25 °C, pH 7.0 and 2.5 % (w/v) sea salts. The major cellular fatty acids were C18 : 1 ω6c and/or C18 : 1 ω7c (49.6 %), C19 : 0 cyclo ω8c (13.5 %), and C16 : 0 (12.8 %). The major respiratory quinone was ubiquinone-10. The polar lipids consisted of phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylglycerol, an unidentified aminolipid and three unidentified lipids. The genomic DNA G+C content of the strain was 59.2 mol%. The phylogenetic, genomic, phenotypic and chemotaxonomic results indicate that strain HL-MP18T is distinguishable from the recognized species of the genus Roseovarius. Therefore, we propose that strain HL-MP18T represents a novel species belonging to the genus Roseovarius, for which the name Roseovarius pelagicus sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is HL-MP18T (=KCCM 90405T=JCM 35639T).
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Affiliation(s)
- Yeon Woo Hong
- Microbial Oceanography Laboratory, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Research Institute of Oceanography, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea
| | - Gwang Il Jang
- Aquatic Disease Control Division, National Fishery Products Quality Management Service, Busan 46083, Republic of Korea
| | - Soo Yoon Kim
- Microbial Oceanography Laboratory, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Research Institute of Oceanography, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea
| | - Jy Young Choi
- Microbial Oceanography Laboratory, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Research Institute of Oceanography, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea
| | - Bok Jin Kim
- Microbial Oceanography Laboratory, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Research Institute of Oceanography, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea
| | - Dong Young Shin
- Microbial Oceanography Laboratory, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Research Institute of Oceanography, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea
| | - Jin Kyeong Kang
- Microbial Oceanography Laboratory, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Research Institute of Oceanography, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea
| | - Seung-Kyu Kim
- Department of Marine Science, College of Natural Sciences, Incheon National University, Incheon 22012, Republic of Korea
| | - Byung Cheol Cho
- Microbial Oceanography Laboratory, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Research Institute of Oceanography, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea
- Saemangeum Environmental Research Center, Kunsan National University, Kunsan 54150, Republic of Korea
| | - Chung Yeon Hwang
- Microbial Oceanography Laboratory, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Research Institute of Oceanography, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea
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Katsyv A, Essig M, Bedendi G, Sahin S, Milton RD, Müller V. Characterization of ferredoxins from the thermophilic, acetogenic bacterium Thermoanaerobacter kivui. FEBS J 2023; 290:4107-4125. [PMID: 37074156 DOI: 10.1111/febs.16801] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/30/2023] [Revised: 03/21/2023] [Accepted: 04/19/2023] [Indexed: 04/20/2023]
Abstract
A major electron carrier involved in energy and carbon metabolism in the acetogenic model organism Thermoanaerobacter kivui is ferredoxin, an iron-sulfur-containing, electron-transferring protein. Here, we show that the genome of T. kivui encodes four putative ferredoxin-like proteins (TKV_c09620, TKV_c16450, TKV_c10420 and TKV_c19530). All four genes were cloned, a His-tag encoding sequence was added and the proteins were produced from a plasmid in T. kivui. The purified proteins had an absorption peak at 430 nm typical for ferredoxins. The determined iron-sulfur content is consistent with the presence of two predicted [4Fe4S] clusters in TKV_c09620 and TKV_c19530 or one predicted [4Fe4S] cluster in TKV_c16450 and TKV_c10420 respectively. The reduction potential (Em ) for TKV_c09620, TKV_c16450, TKV_c10420 and TKV_c19530 was determined to be -386 ± 4 mV, -386 ± 2 mV, -559 ± 10 mV and -557 ± 3 mV, respectively. TKV_c09620 and TKV_c16450 served as electron carriers for different oxidoreductases from T. kivui. Deletion of the ferredoxin genes led to only a slight reduction of growth on pyruvate or autotrophically on H2 + CO2 . Transcriptional analysis revealed that TKV_c09620 was upregulated in a ΔTKV_c16450 mutant and vice versa TKV_c16450 in a ΔTKV_c09620 mutant, indicating that TKV_c09620 and TKV_c16450 can replace each other. In sum, our data are consistent with the hypothesis that TKV_c09620 and TKV_c16450 are ferredoxins involved in autotrophic and heterotrophic metabolism of T. kivui.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexander Katsyv
- Department of Molecular Microbiology & Bioenergetics, Institute of Molecular Biosciences, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
| | - Melanie Essig
- Department of Molecular Microbiology & Bioenergetics, Institute of Molecular Biosciences, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
| | - Giada Bedendi
- Department of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Selmihan Sahin
- Department of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Ross D Milton
- Department of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Volker Müller
- Department of Molecular Microbiology & Bioenergetics, Institute of Molecular Biosciences, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
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Parfitt KM, Green AE, Connor TR, Neill DR, Mahenthiralingam E. Identification of two distinct phylogenomic lineages and model strains for the understudied cystic fibrosis lung pathogen Burkholderia multivorans. Microbiology (Reading) 2023; 169:001366. [PMID: 37526960 PMCID: PMC10482378 DOI: 10.1099/mic.0.001366] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/04/2023] [Accepted: 07/11/2023] [Indexed: 08/02/2023]
Abstract
Burkholderia multivorans is the dominant Burkholderia pathogen recovered from lung infection in people with cystic fibrosis. However, as an understudied pathogen there are knowledge gaps in relation to its population biology, phenotypic traits and useful model strains. A phylogenomic study of B. multivorans was undertaken using a total of 283 genomes, of which 73 were sequenced and 49 phenotypically characterized as part of this study. Average nucleotide identity analysis (ANI) and phylogenetic alignment of core genes demonstrated that the B. multivorans population separated into two distinct evolutionary clades, defined as lineage 1 (n=58 genomes) and lineage 2 (n=221 genomes). To examine the population biology of B. multivorans, a representative subgroup of 77 B. multivorans genomes (28 from the reference databases and the 49 novel short-read genome sequences) were selected based on multilocus sequence typing (MLST), isolation source and phylogenetic placement criteria. Comparative genomics was used to identify B. multivorans lineage-specific genes - ghrB_1 in lineage 1 and glnM_2 in lineage 2 - and diagnostic PCRs targeting them were successfully developed. Phenotypic analysis of 49 representative B. multivorans strains showed considerable inter-strain variance, but the majority of the isolates tested were motile and capable of biofilm formation. A striking absence of B. multivorans protease activity in vitro was observed, but no lineage-specific phenotypic differences were demonstrated. Using phylogenomic and phenotypic criteria, three model B. multivorans CF strains were identified, BCC0084 (lineage 1), BCC1272 (lineage 2a) and BCC0033 lineage 2b, and their complete genome sequences determined. B. multivorans CF strains BCC0033 and BCC0084, and the environmental reference strain, ATCC 17616, were all capable of short-term survival within a murine lung infection model. By mapping the population biology, identifying lineage-specific PCRs and model strains, we provide much needed baseline resources for future studies of B. multivorans.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kasia M. Parfitt
- Cardiff University, Microbiomes, Microbes and Informatics Group, Organisms and Environment Division, School of Biosciences, Cardiff University, CF10 3AX, UK
- Present address: Department of Biology, Big Data Institute, Nuffield Department of Population Health, Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery, Old Road Campus, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7LF, UK
| | - Angharad E. Green
- Department of Clinical Infection, Microbiology and Immunology, Institute of Infection, Veterinary and Ecological Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 7BE, UK
| | - Thomas R. Connor
- Cardiff University, Microbiomes, Microbes and Informatics Group, Organisms and Environment Division, School of Biosciences, Cardiff University, CF10 3AX, UK
| | - Daniel R. Neill
- Department of Clinical Infection, Microbiology and Immunology, Institute of Infection, Veterinary and Ecological Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 7BE, UK
- Present address: Division of Molecular Microbiology, School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, Dundee, DD1 5EH UK, UK
| | - Eshwar Mahenthiralingam
- Cardiff University, Microbiomes, Microbes and Informatics Group, Organisms and Environment Division, School of Biosciences, Cardiff University, CF10 3AX, UK
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Moger-Reischer RZ, Glass JI, Wise KS, Sun L, Bittencourt DMC, Lehmkuhl BK, Schoolmaster DR, Lynch M, Lennon JT. Evolution of a minimal cell. Nature 2023; 620:122-127. [PMID: 37407813 PMCID: PMC10396959 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06288-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/15/2021] [Accepted: 06/06/2023] [Indexed: 07/07/2023]
Abstract
Possessing only essential genes, a minimal cell can reveal mechanisms and processes that are critical for the persistence and stability of life1,2. Here we report on how an engineered minimal cell3,4 contends with the forces of evolution compared with the Mycoplasma mycoides non-minimal cell from which it was synthetically derived. Mutation rates were the highest among all reported bacteria, but were not affected by genome minimization. Genome streamlining was costly, leading to a decrease in fitness of greater than 50%, but this deficit was regained during 2,000 generations of evolution. Despite selection acting on distinct genetic targets, increases in the maximum growth rate of the synthetic cells were comparable. Moreover, when performance was assessed by relative fitness, the minimal cell evolved 39% faster than the non-minimal cell. The only apparent constraint involved the evolution of cell size. The size of the non-minimal cell increased by 80%, whereas the minimal cell remained the same. This pattern reflected epistatic effects of mutations in ftsZ, which encodes a tubulin-homologue protein that regulates cell division and morphology5,6. Our findings demonstrate that natural selection can rapidly increase the fitness of one of the simplest autonomously growing organisms. Understanding how species with small genomes overcome evolutionary challenges provides critical insights into the persistence of host-associated endosymbionts, the stability of streamlined chassis for biotechnology and the targeted refinement of synthetically engineered cells2,7-9.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - J I Glass
- J. Craig Venter Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - K S Wise
- J. Craig Venter Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - L Sun
- J. Craig Venter Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA
- Novartis Gene Therapy, San Diego, CA, USA
| | - D M C Bittencourt
- J. Craig Venter Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA
- Embrapa Genetic Resources and Biotechnology, National Institute of Science and Technology in Synthetic Biology, Brasília, Brazil
| | - B K Lehmkuhl
- Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
| | - D R Schoolmaster
- US Geological Survey, Wetland and Aquatic Research Center, Lafayette, LA, USA
| | - M Lynch
- Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
| | - J T Lennon
- Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA.
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Winkler KR, Mizrahi V, Warner DF, De Wet TJ. High-throughput functional genomics: A (myco)bacterial perspective. Mol Microbiol 2023; 120:141-158. [PMID: 37278255 PMCID: PMC10953053 DOI: 10.1111/mmi.15103] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/30/2020] [Revised: 04/06/2023] [Accepted: 05/21/2023] [Indexed: 06/07/2023]
Abstract
Advances in sequencing technologies have enabled unprecedented insights into bacterial genome composition and dynamics. However, the disconnect between the rapid acquisition of genomic data and the (much slower) confirmation of inferred genetic function threatens to widen unless techniques for fast, high-throughput functional validation can be applied at scale. This applies equally to Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the leading infectious cause of death globally and a pathogen whose genome, despite being among the first to be sequenced two decades ago, still contains many genes of unknown function. Here, we summarize the evolution of bacterial high-throughput functional genomics, focusing primarily on transposon (Tn)-based mutagenesis and the construction of arrayed mutant libraries in diverse bacterial systems. We also consider the contributions of CRISPR interference as a transformative technique for probing bacterial gene function at scale. Throughout, we situate our analysis within the context of functional genomics of mycobacteria, focusing specifically on the potential to yield insights into M. tuberculosis pathogenicity and vulnerabilities for new drug and regimen development. Finally, we offer suggestions for future approaches that might be usefully applied in elucidating the complex cellular biology of this major human pathogen.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kristy R. Winkler
- Molecular Mycobacteriology Research Unit and DSI/NRF Centre of Excellence for Biomedical TB Research, Department of Pathology and Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular MedicineUniversity of Cape TownRondeboschSouth Africa
| | - Valerie Mizrahi
- Molecular Mycobacteriology Research Unit and DSI/NRF Centre of Excellence for Biomedical TB Research, Department of Pathology and Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular MedicineUniversity of Cape TownRondeboschSouth Africa
- Wellcome Centre for Infectious Diseases Research in AfricaUniversity of Cape TownRondeboschSouth Africa
| | - Digby F. Warner
- Molecular Mycobacteriology Research Unit and DSI/NRF Centre of Excellence for Biomedical TB Research, Department of Pathology and Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular MedicineUniversity of Cape TownRondeboschSouth Africa
- Wellcome Centre for Infectious Diseases Research in AfricaUniversity of Cape TownRondeboschSouth Africa
| | - Timothy J. De Wet
- Molecular Mycobacteriology Research Unit and DSI/NRF Centre of Excellence for Biomedical TB Research, Department of Pathology and Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular MedicineUniversity of Cape TownRondeboschSouth Africa
- Wellcome Centre for Infectious Diseases Research in AfricaUniversity of Cape TownRondeboschSouth Africa
- Department of Integrative Biomedical SciencesUniversity of Cape TownRondeboschSouth Africa
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Shangguan Q, White MF. Repurposing the atypical type I-G CRISPR system for bacterial genome engineering. Microbiology (Reading) 2023; 169:001373. [PMID: 37526970 PMCID: PMC10482374 DOI: 10.1099/mic.0.001373] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/24/2023] [Accepted: 07/18/2023] [Indexed: 08/02/2023]
Abstract
The CRISPR-Cas system functions as a prokaryotic immune system and is highly diverse, with six major types and numerous sub-types. The most abundant are type I CRISPR systems, which utilize a multi-subunit effector, Cascade, and a CRISPR RNA (crRNA) to detect invading DNA species. Detection leads to DNA loading of the Cas3 helicase-nuclease, leading to long-range deletions in the targeted DNA, thus providing immunity against mobile genetic elements (MGE). Here, we focus on the type I-G system, a streamlined, 4-subunit complex with an atypical Cas3 enzyme. We demonstrate that Cas3 helicase activity is not essential for immunity against MGE in vivo and explore applications of the Thioalkalivibrio sulfidiphilus Cascade effector for genome engineering in Escherichia coli. Long-range, bidirectional deletions were observed when the lacZ gene was targeted. Deactivation of the Cas3 helicase activity dramatically altered the types of deletions observed, with small deletions flanked by direct repeats that are suggestive of microhomology mediated end joining. When donor DNA templates were present, both the wild-type and helicase-deficient systems promoted homology-directed repair (HDR), with the latter system providing improvements in editing efficiency, suggesting that a single nick in the target site may promote HDR in E. coli using the type I-G system. These findings open the way for further application of the type I-G CRISPR systems in genome engineering.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qilin Shangguan
- School of Biology, Biomedical Sciences Research Complex, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK
| | - Malcolm F. White
- School of Biology, Biomedical Sciences Research Complex, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK
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Blackburn MB, Sparks ME, Mishra R, Bonning BC. Genomic sequencing of fourteen bacillus thuringiensis isolates: insights into geographic variation and phylogenetic implications. BMC Res Notes 2023; 16:134. [PMID: 37403123 PMCID: PMC10318680 DOI: 10.1186/s13104-023-06411-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/27/2022] [Accepted: 06/20/2023] [Indexed: 07/06/2023] Open
Abstract
OBJECTIVE This work was performed in support of a separate study investigating the activity of pesticidal proteins produced by Bacillus thuringiensis against the Asian citrus psyllid, Diaphorina citri. The fourteen Bacillus isolates chosen were selected from a large, geographically diverse collection that was characterized only by biochemical phenotype and morphology of the parasporal crystal, hence, for each isolate it was desired to determine the specific pesticidal proteins produced, assign each to a Bacillus cereus multilocus sequence type (ST), and predict their placement within the classical Bt serotyping system. In addition, phylogenetic distances between the isolates and Bacillus thuringiensis serovar type strains were determined by calculating digital DNA-DNA hybridization (dDDH) values among the isolates. RESULTS Based on the assembled sequence data, the isolates were found to be likely representatives of the Bt serovars kurstaki (ST 8), pakistani (ST 550), toumanoffi (ST 240), israelensis (ST 16), thuringiensis (ST 10), entomocidus (ST 239), and finitimus (ST 171). In cases where multiple isolates occurred within a predicted serovar, pesticidal protein profiles were found to be identical, despite the geographic diversity of the isolates. As expected, the dDDH values calculated for pairwise comparisons of the isolates and their apparent corresponding Bt serovar type strains were quite high (> 98%), however dDDH comparisons of the isolates with other serovar type strains were often surprisingly low (< 70%) and suggest unrecognized taxa within Bt and the Bacillus cereus sensu lato.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael B. Blackburn
- Invasive Insect Biocontrol and Behavior Laboratory, USDA-ARS, Henry A Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, Beltsville, MD 20705 USA
| | - Michael E. Sparks
- Invasive Insect Biocontrol and Behavior Laboratory, USDA-ARS, Henry A Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, Beltsville, MD 20705 USA
| | - Ruchir Mishra
- Department of Entomology and Nematology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611 USA
| | - Bryony C. Bonning
- Department of Entomology and Nematology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611 USA
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49
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Tourasse NJ, Jolley KA, Kolstø AB, Økstad OA. Core genome multilocus sequence typing scheme for Bacillus cereus group bacteria. Res Microbiol 2023; 174:104050. [PMID: 36893969 DOI: 10.1016/j.resmic.2023.104050] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/31/2022] [Revised: 02/24/2023] [Accepted: 02/28/2023] [Indexed: 03/09/2023]
Abstract
Core genome multilocus sequence typing (cgMLST) employs a strategy where the set of orthologous genes common to all members of a group of organisms are used for phylogenetic analysis of the group members. The Bacillus cereus group consists of species with pathogenicity towards insect species as well as warm-blooded animals including humans. While B. cereus is an opportunistic pathogen linked to a range of human disease conditions, including emesis and diarrhoea, Bacillus thuringiensis is an entomopathogenic species with toxicity toward insect larvae, and therefore used as a biological pesticide worldwide. Bacillus anthracis is a classical obligate pathogen causing anthrax, an acute lethal condition in herbivores as well as humans, and which is endemic in many parts of the world. The group also includes a range of additional species, and B. cereus group bacteria have been subject to analysis with a wide variety of phylogenetic typing systems. Here we present, based on analyses of 173 complete genomes from B. cereus group species available in public databases, the identification of a set of 1568 core genes which were used to create a core genome multilocus typing scheme for the group which is implemented in the PubMLST system as an open online database freely available to the community. The new cgMLST system provides unprecedented resolution over existing phylogenetic analysis schemes covering the B. cereus group.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicolas J Tourasse
- Department of Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Biosciences, University of Oslo, Norway; University of Bordeaux, CNRS, INSERM, ARNA, UMR 5320, U1212, F-33000 Bordeaux, France.
| | | | - Anne-Brit Kolstø
- Department of Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Biosciences, University of Oslo, Norway.
| | - Ole Andreas Økstad
- Department of Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Biosciences, University of Oslo, Norway.
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50
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Zürcher JF, Kleefeldt AA, Funke LFH, Birnbaum J, Fredens J, Grazioli S, Liu KC, Spinck M, Petris G, Murat P, Rehm FBH, Sale JE, Chin JW. Continuous synthesis of E. coli genome sections and Mb-scale human DNA assembly. Nature 2023; 619:555-562. [PMID: 37380776 PMCID: PMC7614783 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06268-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/20/2022] [Accepted: 05/26/2023] [Indexed: 06/30/2023]
Abstract
Whole-genome synthesis provides a powerful approach for understanding and expanding organism function1-3. To build large genomes rapidly, scalably and in parallel, we need (1) methods for assembling megabases of DNA from shorter precursors and (2) strategies for rapidly and scalably replacing the genomic DNA of organisms with synthetic DNA. Here we develop bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) stepwise insertion synthesis (BASIS)-a method for megabase-scale assembly of DNA in Escherichia coli episomes. We used BASIS to assemble 1.1 Mb of human DNA containing numerous exons, introns, repetitive sequences, G-quadruplexes, and long and short interspersed nuclear elements (LINEs and SINEs). BASIS provides a powerful platform for building synthetic genomes for diverse organisms. We also developed continuous genome synthesis (CGS)-a method for continuously replacing sequential 100 kb stretches of the E. coli genome with synthetic DNA; CGS minimizes crossovers1,4 between the synthetic DNA and the genome such that the output for each 100 kb replacement provides, without sequencing, the input for the next 100 kb replacement. Using CGS, we synthesized a 0.5 Mb section of the E. coli genome-a key intermediate in its total synthesis1-from five episomes in 10 days. By parallelizing CGS and combining it with rapid oligonucleotide synthesis and episome assembly5,6, along with rapid methods for compiling a single genome from strains bearing distinct synthetic genome sections1,7,8, we anticipate that it will be possible to synthesize entire E. coli genomes from functional designs in less than 2 months.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jérôme F Zürcher
- Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK
| | - Askar A Kleefeldt
- Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK
| | - Louise F H Funke
- Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
| | - Jakob Birnbaum
- Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK
| | - Julius Fredens
- Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK
- Synthetic Biology for Clinical and Technological Innovation, Department of Biochemistry, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
| | - Simona Grazioli
- Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK
| | - Kim C Liu
- Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK
| | - Martin Spinck
- Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK
| | - Gianluca Petris
- Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK
- Wellcome Sanger Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, UK
| | - Pierre Murat
- Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK
| | - Fabian B H Rehm
- Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK
| | - Julian E Sale
- Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK
| | - Jason W Chin
- Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK.
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