Genetic variants linked to the phenotypic outcome of invasive disease and carriage of Neisseria meningitidis

Neisseria meningitidis can be a human commensal in the upper respiratory tract but is also capable of causing invasive diseases such as meningococcal meningitis and septicaemia. No specific genetic markers have been detected to distinguish carriage from disease isolates. The aim here was to find genetic traits that could be linked to phenotypic outcomes associated with carriage versus invasive N. meningitidis disease through a bacterial genome-wide association study (GWAS). In this study, invasive N. meningitidis isolates collected in Sweden (n=103) and carriage isolates collected at Örebro University, Sweden (n=213) 2018–2019 were analysed. The GWAS analysis, treeWAS, was applied to single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), genes and k-mers. One gene and one non-synonymous SNP were associated with invasive disease and seven genes and one non-synonymous SNP were associated with carriage isolates. The gene associated with invasive disease encodes a phage transposase (NEIS1048), and the associated invasive SNP glmU S373C encodes the enzyme N-acetylglucosamine 1-phosphate (GlcNAC 1-P) uridyltransferase. Of the genes associated with carriage isolates, a gene variant of porB encoding PorB class 3, the genes pilE/pilS and tspB have known functions. The SNP associated with carriage was fkbp D33N, encoding a FK506-binding protein (FKBP). K-mers from PilS, tbpB and tspB were found to be associated with carriage, while k-mers from mtrD and tbpA were associated with invasiveness. In the genes fkbp, glmU, PilC and pilE, k-mers were found that were associated with both carriage and invasive isolates, indicating that specific variations within these genes could play a role in invasiveness. The data presented here highlight genetic traits that are significantly associated with invasive or carriage N. meningitidis across the species population. These traits could prove essential to our understanding of the pathogenicity of N. meningitidis and could help to identify future vaccine targets.