Publicación: Spanish Outbreak Isolates Bridge Phylogenies of European and American Bacillus anthracis
Fecha
2023-03-29
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MDPI - Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
Resumen
The geographical origin of a major present-day phylogenetic group (A branch WNA; A.Br.WNA) of American Bacillus anthracis is controversial. One hypothesis postulated that the anthrax pathogen reached North America via a then-existing land bridge from northeastern Asia thousands of years ago. A competing hypothesis suggested that B. anthracis was introduced to America a couple of hundred years ago, related to European colonization. The latter view is strongly supported by genomic analysis of a group of French B. anthracis isolates that are phylogenetically closely related to the North American strains of the A branch A.Br.WNA clade. In addition, three West African strains also belong to this relationship group. Recently, we have added a Spanish strain to these close relatives of the WNA lineage of American B. anthracis. Nevertheless, the diversity of Spanish B. anthracis remains largely unexplored, and phylogenetic links to European or American relatives are not well resolved. Here, we genome sequenced and characterized 29 new B. anthracis isolates (yielding 18 unique genotypes) from outbreaks in west central and central Spain in 2021. Applying comparative chromosomal analysis, we placed the chromosomes of these isolates within the established phylogeny of the A.Br.008/009 (A.Br.TEA) canonical SNP group. From this analysis, a new sub-clade, named A.Br.11/ESPc, emerged that constitutes a sister group of American A.Br.WNA.
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The authors thank Manuel Durán Ferrer from the División de Laboratorios de Sanidad de la Producción Agraria (Ministerio de Agricultura, Pesca y Alimentación, Spain) for permitting us to share the sequences of B. anthracis strains from Spanish outbreak as well as for providing technical information. The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript or in the decision to publish the results.
The genome sequence data presented in this study are available from the NCBI database under the BioProject ID: PRJNA930337. These and the accession numbers of publicly available genome sequences analyzed are listed in the Supplementary Material (Table S2) of this manuscript. Disclaimer/Publisher’s Note: The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of MDPI and/or the editor(s). MDPI and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.
Palabras clave
Anthrax, Bacillus anthracis, Spain, Genotyping, Genome sequencing, Phylogeny
Citación
Microorganisms 11(4): 889
