Department of Oral and Craniofacial Sciences, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Genome Informatics Research Laboratory, High Impact Research Building, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Sci Rep. 2016 Oct 31;6:36116. doi: 10.1038/srep36116.
On record, there are 17 species in the Yersinia genus, of which three are known to be pathogenic to human. While the chromosomal and pYV (or pCD1) plasmid-borne virulence genes as well as pathogenesis of these three species are well studied, their genomic evolution is poorly understood. Our study aims to predict the key evolutionary events that led to the emergence of pathogenic Yersinia species by analyzing gene gain-and-loss, virulence genes, and "Clustered regularly-interspaced short palindromic repeats". Our results suggest that the most recent ancestor shared by the human pathogenic Yersinia was most probably an environmental species that had adapted to the human body. This might have led to ecological specialization that diverged Yersinia into ecotypes and distinct lineages based on differential gene gain-and-loss in different niches. Our data also suggest that Y. pseudotuberculosis group might be the donor of the ail virulence gene to Y. enterocolitica. Hence, we postulate that evolution of human pathogenic Yersinia might not be totally in parallel, but instead, there were lateral gene transfer events. Furthermore, the presence of virulence genes seems to be important for the positive selection of virulence plasmid. Our studies provide better insights into the evolutionary biology of these bacteria.
记录显示，耶尔森氏菌属有 17 个种，其中有 3 种已知对人类具有致病性。虽然这三种细菌的染色体和 pYV（或 pCD1）质粒携带的毒力基因以及发病机制已经得到了很好的研究，但它们的基因组进化仍知之甚少。我们的研究旨在通过分析基因获得和丢失、毒力基因以及“成簇规律间隔短回文重复”（CRISPR），预测导致致病性耶尔森氏菌出现的关键进化事件。我们的结果表明，人类致病性耶尔森氏菌的最近共同祖先很可能是一种适应人体环境的物种。这可能导致生态特化，使耶尔森氏菌根据不同生态位的基因获得和丢失而分化为不同的生态型和谱系。我们的数据还表明，假结核耶尔森氏菌群可能是ail 毒力基因的供体，转移到了肠道侵袭性耶尔森氏菌。因此，我们假设人类致病性耶尔森氏菌的进化并非完全平行，而是存在水平基因转移事件。此外，毒力基因的存在似乎对毒力质粒的正选择很重要。我们的研究为这些细菌的进化生物学提供了更好的见解。
