Monomorphic pathogens: The case of Candidatus Xenohaliotis californiensis from abalone in California, USA and Baja California, Mexico.

Withering syndrome (WS) is a chronic wasting disease affecting abalone species attributed to the pathogen Candidatus Xenohaliotis californiensis (CXc). Wild populations of blue (Haliotis fulgens) and yellow (H. corrugata) abalone have experienced unusual mortality rates since 2009 off the peninsula of Baja California and WS has been hypothesized as a possible cause. Currently, little information is available about the genetic diversity of CXc and particularly the possible existence of strains differing in pathogenicity. In a recent phylogenetic analysis, we characterized five coding genes from this rickettsial pathogen. Here, we analyze those genes and two additional intergenic non-coding regions following multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) and multi-spacer typing (MST) approaches to assess the genetic variability of CXc and its relationship with blue, yellow and red (H. rufescens) abalone. Moreover, we used 16S rRNA pyrosequencing reads from gut microbiomes of blue and yellow abalone to complete the genetic characterization of this prokaryote. The presence of CXc was investigated in more than 150 abalone of the three species; furthermore, a total of 385 DNA sequences and 7117 16S rRNA reads from Candidatus Xenohaliotis californiensis were used to evaluate its population genetic structure. Our findings suggest the absence of polymorphism in the DNA sequences of analyzed loci and the presence of a single lineage of CXc infecting abalone from California (USA) and Baja California (Mexico). We posit that the absence of genetic variably in this marine rickettsia may be the result of evolutionary and ecological processes.