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Volume 7, Issue 12

Comparative genomics of Chinese and international isolates of : population structure and evolution of virulence and antimicrobial resistance Open Access

Abstract

is a recently recognized species in the genus that causes diarrhoea. The population structure, genetic diversity and genomic features have not been fully examined. Here, 169 isolates from different sources and regions in China were sequenced and combined with 312 publicly available genomes (from additional 14 countries) for genomic analyses. The population was divided into two clades and eight lineages, with lineage 3 (L3), L5 and L8 more common in China. Clinical isolates were observed in all clades/lineages. Virulence genes were found to be distributed differently among lineages: subtypes of the intimin encoding gene and the cytolethal distending toxin gene were lineage associated, and the second type three secretion system (ETT2) island was truncated in L3 and L6. Seven new subtypes and one new subtype (-VI) were identified. Alarmingly, 85.9 % of the Chinese isolates were predicted to be multidrug-resistant (MDR) with 35.9 % harbouring genes capable of conferring resistance to 10 to 14 different drug classes. The majority of the MDR isolates were of poultry source from China and belonged to four sequence types (STs) [ST4638, ST4479, ST4633 and ST4488]. Thirty-four plasmids with some carrying MDR and virulence genes, and 130 prophages were identified from 17 complete genomes. The 130 intact prophages were clustered into five groups, with group five prophages harbouring more virulence genes. We further identified three specific genes as markers for the identification of this species. Our findings provided fundamental insights into the population structure, virulence variation and drug resistance of .

  • Received:
  • Accepted:
  • Published Online:
Keyword(s): Escherichia albertii , multidrug resistance , population structure , species-specific marker genes , transmissible elements and virulence
Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • university of new south wales
    • Principle Award Recipient: LuoLijuan
  • australian research council discovery grant (Award DP170101917)
  • state key laboratory of infectious disease prevention and control, china cdc (Award 2016SKLID309)
  • national key research and development program of china (Award 2017YFC1601502)
© 2021 The Authors
  • This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License.
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2021-12-09
2024-04-24
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Comparative genomics of Chinese and international isolates of Escherichia albertii: population structure and evolution of virulence and antimicrobial resistance
M Gen 7, 000710 (2021); https://doi.org/10.1099/mgen.0.000710
/content/journal/mgen/10.1099/mgen.0.000710
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