1. Examination of Australian Streptococcus suis isolates from clinically affected pigs in a global context and the genomic characterisation of ST1 as a predictor of virulence
- Author
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Mark O’Dea, Alec Truswell, Tanya Laird, Marcelo Gottschalk, Kittitat Lugsomya, Laura Fitt, David Jordan, Sam Abraham, and Rebecca Abraham
- Subjects
0301 basic medicine ,Streptococcus suis ,Swine ,Virulence Factors ,Virulence ,Context (language use) ,Biology ,Microbiology ,Genome ,Viral Proteins ,03 medical and health sciences ,Antibiotic resistance ,Drug Resistance, Multiple, Bacterial ,Streptococcal Infections ,Animals ,Humans ,Clade ,Gene ,Phylogeny ,Swine Diseases ,Genetics ,Whole genome sequencing ,General Veterinary ,Australia ,Genomics ,General Medicine ,Tetracycline ,biology.organism_classification ,Anti-Bacterial Agents ,Erythromycin ,030104 developmental biology ,Genome, Bacterial ,Multilocus Sequence Typing - Abstract
Streptococcus suis is a major zoonotic pathogen that causes severe disease in both humans and pigs. Australia’s pig herd has been quarantined for over 30 years, however S. suis remains a significant cause of disease. In this study, we investigated S. suis from 148 cases of clinical disease in pigs from 46 pig herds over a period of seven years, to determine the level of genetic difference from international isolates that may have arisen over the 30 years of separation. Isolates underwent whole genome sequencing, genome analysis and antimicrobial susceptibility testing. Data was compared at the core genome level to clinical isolates from overseas. Results demonstrated five predominant multi-locus sequence types and two major cps gene types (cps2 and 3). At the core genome level Australian isolates clustered predominantly within one large clade consisting of isolates from the UK, Canada and North America. A small proportion of Australian swine isolates (5%) were phylogenetically associated with south-east Asian and UK isolates, many of which were classified as causing systemic disease, and derived from cases of human and swine disease. Based on this dataset we provide a comprehensive outline of the current S. suis clones associated with disease in Australian pigs and their global context, with the main finding being that, despite three decades of separation, Australian S. suis are genomically similar to overseas strains. In addition, we show that ST1 clones carry a constellation of putative virulence genes not present in other Australian STs.
- Published
- 2018