Comparative Genomics of Serotype O55:H7 Using Complete Closed Genomes.

O55:H7 is a human foodborne pathogen and is recognized as the progenitor strain of O157:H7. While this strain is important from a food safety and genomic evolution standpoint, much of the genomic diversity of O55:H7 has been demonstrated using draft genomes. Here, we combine the four publicly available O55:H7 closed genomes with six newly sequenced closed genomes to provide context to this strain's genomic diversity. We found significant diversity within the 10 O55:H7 strains that belonged to three different sequence types. The prophage content was about 10% of the genome, with three prophages common to all strains and seven unique to one strain. Overall, there were 492 insertion sequences identified within the six new sequence strains, with each strain on average containing 75 insertions (range 55 to 114). A total of 31 plasmids were identified between all isolates (range 1 to 6), with one plasmid (pO55) having an identical phylogenetic tree as the chromosome. The release and comparison of these closed genomes provides new insight into O55:H7 diversity and its ability to cause disease in humans.