Comparative genomics of swine pathogen Chlamydia suis with human- and mouse-adapted Chlamydia spp Article Swipe
YOU?
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· 2019
· Open Access
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· DOI: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.2.12226/v1
· OA: W4248479963
<title>Abstract</title> Background The phylum, Chlamydiae, contains a unique set of obligately intracellular bacteria with specific host ranges, despite high genomic relatedness between species. Chlamydia suis, a ubiquitous swine pathogen, has the potential for zoonotic transmission to humans and often encodes for resistance to the primary treatment antibiotic, tetracycline. Because of this emerging threat, and to gain a better understanding of the basic biology, comparative genomics for a tetracycline-resistant swine isolate (R19) with inter- and intra-species genomes was performed. Results A 1.094Mb genome was determined through de novo assembly of Illumina high throughput sequencing reads. Annotation and subsystem analyses were conducted using novel bioinformatic platform, PATRIC, revealing 986 putative genes (Chls_###) that are predominantly orthologs to other known Chlamydia genes. Subsequent comparative genomics using C. trachomatis and C. muridarum, human and mouse pathogens, respectively, revealed a high level of genomic synteny and overall sequence identity. Around 857 genes were found to be conserved between these three species while 92 unique C. suis components were annotated. Direct comparison of chlamydia-specific gene families; inclusion membrane proteins, polymorphic membrane proteins and the major outer membrane protein as well as the plasticity zone, demonstrates the high gene content identity with C. trachomatis and C. muridarum as well as highlights putative host-specificity factors. Conclusions This study constitutes the first genome-wide comparative analysis for C. suis, generating a fully annotated reference genome using NIAID bioinformatic tool, PATRIC. Overall, these analyses build upon previous C. suis analyses to compare the composition of key genetic components with two closely related Chlamydia species. These studies will enable focused efforts on factors that provide key species specificity and adaptation to cognate hosts that are attributed to chlamydial infections, including humans. Continued analysis of the C. suis genome will facilitate studies into the complexities of the chlamydial proteome and discovery of basic biology.
