scholarly journals Stable Positions of Epigenetically Inherited Centromeres in the Emerging Fungal Pathogen Candida auris and Its Relatives

mBio ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura N. Rusche

Candida auris is an emerging fungal pathogen that is thermotolerant and often resistant to standard antifungal treatments. To trace its evolutionary history, the Sanyal lab conducted a comparative genomic study focusing on the positions of centromeres in C. auris and eight other species from the Clavispora / Candida clade of yeasts (A.

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (33) ◽  
Author(s):  
Saswati Biswas ◽  
Indranil Biswas

ABSTRACT Here, we report the complete genome sequence of Streptococcus mutans strain MD, which produces potent mutacins capable of inhibiting streptococci. MD is a relatively uncharacterized strain whose genome information was unavailable. This study provides useful information for comparative genomic study and for understanding the repertoire of mutacins in S. mutans.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (45) ◽  
Author(s):  
Valery M. Moloto ◽  
Teresa Goszczynska ◽  
Ahmed Idris Hassen ◽  
Rian Pierneef ◽  
Teresa Coutinho

ABSTRACT Pantoea agglomerans strains BD1274 and BD1212 were isolated from Allium cepa seeds. Strain BD1274 induced a disease symptom on a healthy onion, whereas strain BD1212 did not and remains nonpathogenic. A comparative genomic study revealed that the strains differ in their genomic compositions, particularly in the genes that confer pathogenicity.


mSphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Putonti ◽  
Jason W. Shapiro ◽  
Adriana Ene ◽  
Oleksandra Tsibere ◽  
Alan J. Wolfe

ABSTRACT Lactobacilli are dominant members of the “healthy” female urogenital microbiota. One of these species, Lactobacillus jensenii, is routinely identified in the urinary microbiota of women both with and without urinary tract symptoms. In March 2020, the new bacterial species Lactobacillus mulieris was introduced, and phylogenetic and average nucleotide identity analysis identified eight L. jensenii strains that should be classified as members of the L. mulieris species. This prompted our phylogenomic study of all publicly available L. jensenii and L. mulieris genome sequences. While there is little variation in the 16S rRNA gene sequences, the core genome shows a clear distinction between genomes of the two species. We find eight additional strains of the species L. mulieris among these genomes. Furthermore, one strain, currently classified as L. mulieris UMB7784, is distinct from both L. jensenii and L. mulieris strains. As part of our comparative genomic study, we also investigated the genetic content that distinguishes these two species. Unique to the L. jensenii genomes are several genes related to catabolism of disaccharides. In contrast, L. mulieris genomes encode several cell surface and secreted proteins that are not found within the L. jensenii genomes. These L. jensenii-specific and L. mulieris-specific loci provide insight into phenotypic differences of these two species. IMPORTANCE Lactobacillus species play a key role in the health of the urinary tract. For instance, Lactobacillus crispatus and L. jensenii have been found to inhibit uropathogenic Escherichia coli growth. While L. crispatus is typically found only within the microbiota of women without lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS), L. jensenii has been found in the microbiota of women both with and without LUTS. With the recent introduction of the new species Lactobacillus mulieris, several strains of L. jensenii were reclassified as L. mulieris based upon gene marker and average nucleotide identity. We took a phylogenomic and comparative genomic approach to ascertain the genetic determinants of these two species. Looking at a larger data set, we identified additional L. mulieris strains, including one distinct from other members of the species—L. mulieris UMB7784. Furthermore, we identified unique loci in each species that may have clinical implications.


F1000Research ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oksana Lukjancenko ◽  
Martin Christen Thomsen ◽  
Mette Voldby Larsen ◽  
David Wayne Ussery

PanFunPro is a tool for pan-genome analysis that integrates functional domains from three Hidden Markov Models (HMM) collections, and uses this information to group homologous proteins into families based on functional domain content. We use PanFunPro to compare a set of Lactobacillus and Streptococcus genomes. The example demonstrates that this method can provide analysis of differences and similarities in protein content within user-defined sets of genomes. PanFunPro can find various applications in a comparative genomic study, starting with the basic comparison of newly sequenced isolates to already existing strains, and an estimation of shared and specific genomic content. Furthermore, it can potentially be used in the determination of target sequences for in silico bacterial identification, as well as for epidemiological studies.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abhirami Krishnamoorthy Sundaresan ◽  
Keerthana Vincent ◽  
Ganesh Babu Malli Mohan ◽  
Jayapradha Ramakrishnan

Abstract Klebsiella pneumoniae is an important ESKAPE pathogen that causes sepsis, urinary tract infections, peritonitis, intraabdominal abscesses and upper respiratory infections. The strains exhibiting multidrug resistance and hypervirulence are priority pathogens for which immediate treatment and dissemination prevention strategies are required. The hypervirulent drug resistant K. pneumoniae is associated with high mortality rates. Numbers of environmental strains also have acquired virulence genes. Hence to gain a better understanding of the spread of antimicrobial resistant genes across the country over 10 years and to delineate environmental and clinical K. pneumoniae, a comparative genomics investigation was made. This is the first comparative genomic study using India isolates of K. pneumoniae, which includes publicly available WGS of 144 clinical and 9 environmental strains collected during 2010–2020. The blaCTX-M-15 was widely distributed in clinical isolates since 2013 and increased over time from 5 % to 30 %. The co-existence of blaNDM and blaOXA was observed in 22 % of clinical strains. Diverse serotypes were found among the 153 K. pneumoniae isolates, of which, K51 (28%) and K64 (21.56%) were majorly found. Most of the K51 isolates belong to ST231 (93.02 %). And more than 50% of KL51 strains were found to have both rmpA and magA. The number of associated virulence genes (rmpA, magA, entB, ybtS, iutA, alls,) appeared to be higher in ST231-KL51 and ST23-KL1 isolates. Of greatest concern, these virulence genes are observed in environmental strains aswell. More than 97% of clinical strains have yersinibactin (ybtS), aerobactin (iutA) genes. Importantly, 98% of ESBL and 62% of carbapenamasen isolates harboured ybtS, iutA and rmpA, magA respectively. The IncF conjugative plasmids are predominant in K. pneumoniae, which contribute to the spread of AMR, and virulence genes. The increasing trend in hypervirulent strains was observed from 2017. The phylogenetic analysis separates the environmental from clinical strains and is characterized by uncommon STs and serotypes. Thus, the study illustrates the K. pneumoniae genomic surveillance in India representing the phylogenetic evolution, STs, AMR, virulence, serotype to provide more attention for immediate treatment and preventing the dissemination of K. pneumoniae.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. e0258019
Author(s):  
Ishtiaque Ahammad ◽  
Mohammad Uzzal Hossain ◽  
Anisur Rahman ◽  
Zeshan Mahmud Chowdhury ◽  
Arittra Bhattacharjee ◽  
...  

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage across the globe and take millions of lives and like many parts of the world, the second wave of the pandemic hit Bangladesh, this study aimed at understanding its causative agent, SARS-CoV-2 at the genomic and proteomic level and provide precious insights about the pathogenesis, evolution, strengths and weaknesses of the virus. As of Mid-June 2021, over 1500 SARS-CoV-2 genomesequences have been deposited in the GISAID database from Bangladesh which were extracted and categorized into two waves. By analyzing these genome sequences, it was discovered that the wave-2 samples had a significantly greater average rate of mutation/sample (30.79%) than the wave-1 samples (12.32%). Wave-2 samples also had a higher frequency of deletion, and transversion events. During the first wave, the GR clade was the most predominant but it was replaced by the GH clade in the latter wave. The B.1.1.25 variant showed the highest frequency in wave-1 while in case of wave-2, the B.1.351.3 variant, was the most common one. A notable presence of the delta variant, which is currently at the center of concern, was also observed. Comparison of the Spike protein found in the reference and the 3 most common lineages found in Bangladesh namely, B.1.1.7, B.1.351, B.1.617 in terms of their ability to form stable complexes with ACE2 receptor revealed that B.1.617 had the potential to be more transmissible than others. Importantly, no indigenous variants have been detected so far which implies that the successful prevention of import of foreign variants can diminish the outbreak in the country.


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