Brucella melitensis: a nasty bug with hidden credentials for virulence.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Moreno E
PROVIDER: S-EPMC117501 | biostudies-literature | 2002 Jan
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Brucella melitensis: a nasty bug with hidden credentials for virulence.
Moreno Edgardo E Moriyon Ignacio I
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20020101 1
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Project description:Many virulence genes have been detected in attenuated mutants of Brucella melitensis 16 M; nevertheless, a complete report of these genes, including the main Cluster of Orthologous Groups (COG) represented as well as the taxonomical distribution among all complete bacterial and archaeal genomes, has not been analyzed. In this work a total of 160 virulence genes that have been reported in attenuated mutants in B. melitensis were included and analyzed. Additionally, we obtained 250 B. melitensis randomly selected genes as a reference group for the taxonomical comparisons. The COGs and the taxonomical distribution profile for 789 nonredundant bacterial and archaeal genomes were obtained and compared with the whole-genome COG distribution and with the 250 randomly selected genes, respectively. The main COGs associated with virulence genes corresponded to the following: intracellular trafficking, secretion and vesicular transport (U); cell motility (N); nucleotide transport and metabolism (F); transcription (K); and cell wall/membrane/envelope biogenesis (M). In addition, we found that virulence genes presented a higher proportion of orthologs in the Euryarchaeota and Proteobacteria phyla, with a significant decrease in Chlamydiae, Bacteroidetes, Tenericutes, Firmicutes and Thermotogae. In conclusion, we found that genes related to specific functions are more relevant to B. melitensis virulence, with the COG U the most significant. Additionally, the taxonomical distribution of virulence genes highlights the importance of these genes in the related Proteobacteria, being less relevant in distant groups of organisms with the exception of Euryarchaeota.
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Project description:The Brucella melitensis vaccine strain M5 is widely used to prevent and control brucellosis in animals. In this study, we determined the whole-genome sequence of M5, and conducted a comprehensive comparative analysis against the whole-genome sequence of the virulent strain 16 M and other reference strains. This analysis revealed 11 regions of deletion (RDs) and 2 regions of insertion (RIs) within the M5 genome. Among these regions, the sequences encompassed in 5 RDs and 1 RI showed consistent variation, with a large deletion between the M5 and the 16 M genomes. RD4 and RD5 showed the large diversity among all Brucella genomes, both in RD length and RD copy number. Thus, RD4 and RD5 are potential sites for typing different Brucella strains. Other RD and RI regions exhibited multiple single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). In addition, a genome fragment with a 56 kb rearrangement was determined to be consistent with previous studies. Comparative genomic analysis indicated that genomic island inversion in Brucella was widely present. With the genetic pattern common among all strains analyzed, these 2 RDs, 1 RI, and one inversion region are potential sites for detection of genomic differences. Several SNPs of important virulence-related genes (motB, dhbC, sfuB, dsbAB, aidA, aroC, and lysR) were also detected, and may be used to determine the mechanism of virulence attenuation. Collectively, this study reveals that comparative analysis between wild-type and vaccine strains can provide resources for the study of virulence and microevolution of Brucella.
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Project description:In this study we report that B. melitensis at the late logarithmic phase of growth are more invasive for HeLa cells than at mid logarithmic or stationary growth phases. Microarray analysis of B. melitensis gene expression identified 414 up- and 40 down-regulated genes in late-log growth phase compared to the stationary growth phase. The vast majority of the up-regulated genes in late-log cultures were those associated with DNA replication, transcription and translation, intermediate metabolism, energy production and conversion, membrane transport and cell envelope, biogenesis and outer membrane, while the down-regulated genes were distributed among several functional categories. This first Brucella global gene expression study provides novel information on growth phase-specific gene regulation important not only for understanding Brucella physiology but also the initial molecular interactions between Brucella and its host. Keywords: Comparison bacterial growth phase normalized to genomic DNA
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