SERIDA, Servicio Regional de Investigación y Desarrollo Agroalimentario, Departamento de Sistemas de Producción Animal, 33300 Villaviciosa, Spain.
Animal Health Department, NEIKER-Basque Institute for Agricultural Research and Development, Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), Bizkaia Science and Technology Park 812L, 48160 Derio, Spain.
Genome Biol Evol. 2024 Oct 9;16(10). doi: 10.1093/gbe/evae203.
Campylobacter fetus is an animal pathogen that contains 2 mammal-associated subspecies: Campylobacter fetus subsp. fetus (Cff) and Campylobacter fetus subsp. venerealis (Cfv) including its biovar intermedius that exhibit different biochemical traits and differences in pathogenicity. Although plasmids are important in the horizontal transfer of antimicrobial resistance genes and virulence factors, C. fetus plasmids are understudied. Here, the closed sequences of 12 plasmids from Spanish C. fetus isolates were compared with the publicly available DNA sequences of C. fetus plasmids and other members of the Campylobacterales order. Sizes of C. fetus plasmids from Spanish isolates ranged between 4 and 50 kb and most of them (10/12) were potentially conjugative. Comparative analysis of the plasmids' gene content revealed a close genetic relationship between the plasmids of C. fetus isolated in Spain and those from other geographical regions, while being clearly distinct from plasmids of other Campylobacter species. Furthermore, C. fetus plasmids were grouped into two main clusters regardless of their geographic location or lineage. The distribution pattern of relaxase, replicase, and single-stranded DNA binding SSB protein encoding genes showed a clustering comparable to that resulting from plasmid whole gene content analysis, suggesting its potential use for the classification of C. fetus plasmids. Most of the larger plasmids harbored mobile genetic elements. These results can help to better understand the evolutionary dynamics and pathogenic implications of C. fetus plasmids.
弯曲菌胎儿是一种动物病原体，包含 2 个与哺乳动物相关的亚种：弯曲菌胎儿亚种。胎儿（Cff）和弯曲菌胎儿亚种。维纳斯（Cfv）包括其生物变种中间体，表现出不同的生化特征和致病性差异。虽然质粒在抗菌药物耐药基因和毒力因子的水平转移中很重要，但弯曲菌胎儿质粒的研究还不够。在这里，比较了来自西班牙弯曲菌胎儿分离株的 12 个闭合序列质粒与弯曲菌胎儿质粒和弯曲菌目其他成员的公开可用 DNA 序列。来自西班牙分离株的弯曲菌胎儿质粒大小在 4 到 50kb 之间，其中大多数（10/12）可能是可接合的。对质粒基因含量的比较分析表明，西班牙分离的弯曲菌胎儿质粒与其他地理区域的质粒具有密切的遗传关系，而与其他弯曲菌属的质粒明显不同。此外，无论地理位置或谱系如何，弯曲菌胎儿质粒都分为两个主要簇。松弛酶、复制酶和单链 DNA 结合 SSB 蛋白编码基因的分布模式与质粒全基因含量分析得出的聚类相似，表明其可能用于弯曲菌胎儿质粒的分类。大多数较大的质粒都携带有移动遗传元件。这些结果有助于更好地理解弯曲菌胎儿质粒的进化动态和致病意义。
