Project description:Background: Lactococcus garvieae is a bacterial pathogen that affects different animal species and human. Despite the widespread distribution and emerging clinical significance of L. garvieae in both veterinary and human medicine, there is almost a complete lack of knowledge about the genetic content of this microorganism. In the present study the genomic content of L. garvieae CECT 4531 was analyzed by bioinformatic tools and microarray-based comparative genomic hybridizations (CGH) experiments, using Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis IL1403 and Streptococcus pneumoniae TIGR4 as reference microorganisms. Results: The combination and integration of in silico analyses and in vitro (CGH) experiments performed between the reference microorganisms allowed establishing an inter-species hybridization framework with a detection threshold based on the sequence similarity ≥70%. With this threshold value, 267 genes were identified as having an analogue in L. garvieae, most of which (n = 258) have been documented for the first time in this pathogen. Most of these genes are related to ribosomal, sugar metabolism or energy conversion systems. Some identified genes could be involved in the pathogenesis of L. garvieae infections. Conclusions: In this study a comparative analysis based on microarray interspecies hybridization and the use of bioinformatic tools were used for the first time to study the genetic content of L. garvieae CECT 4531. Towards this approach, we identified 267 potentially present genes in L. garvieae CECT 4531, some of which could be involved in the pathogenesis of L. garvieae infections, such as als or mycA. These results provide the first insight into the genome content of L. garvieae.
