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Genetic Organisation, Mobility and Predicted Functions of Genes on Integrated, Mobile Genetic Elements in Sequenced Strains of Clostridium difficile

BACKGROUND: Clostridium difficile is the leading cause of hospital-associated diarrhoea in the US and Europe. Recently the incidence of C. difficile-associated disease has risen dramatically and concomitantly with the emergence of ‘hypervirulent’ strains associated with more severe disease and incre...

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Autores principales: Brouwer, Michael S. M., Warburton, Philip J., Roberts, Adam P., Mullany, Peter, Allan, Elaine
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3158075/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21876735
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0023014
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author Brouwer, Michael S. M.
Warburton, Philip J.
Roberts, Adam P.
Mullany, Peter
Allan, Elaine
author_facet Brouwer, Michael S. M.
Warburton, Philip J.
Roberts, Adam P.
Mullany, Peter
Allan, Elaine
author_sort Brouwer, Michael S. M.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Clostridium difficile is the leading cause of hospital-associated diarrhoea in the US and Europe. Recently the incidence of C. difficile-associated disease has risen dramatically and concomitantly with the emergence of ‘hypervirulent’ strains associated with more severe disease and increased mortality. C. difficile contains numerous mobile genetic elements, resulting in the potential for a highly plastic genome. In the first sequenced strain, 630, there is one proven conjugative transposon (CTn), Tn5397, and six putative CTns (CTn1, CTn2 and CTn4-7), of which, CTn4 and CTn5 were capable of excision. In the second sequenced strain, R20291, two further CTns were described. RESULTS: CTn1, CTn2 CTn4, CTn5 and CTn7 were shown to excise from the genome of strain 630 and transfer to strain CD37. A putative CTn from R20291, misleadingly termed a phage island previously, was shown to excise and to contain three putative mobilisable transposons, one of which was capable of excision. In silico probing of C. difficile genome sequences with recombinase gene fragments identified new putative conjugative and mobilisable transposons related to the elements in strains 630 and R20291. CTn5-like elements were described occupying different insertion sites in different strains, CTn1-like elements that have lost the ability to excise in some ribotype 027 strains were described and one strain was shown to contain CTn5-like and CTn7-like elements arranged in tandem. Additionally, using bioinformatics, we updated previous gene annotations and predicted novel functions for the accessory gene products on these new elements. CONCLUSIONS: The genomes of the C. difficile strains examined contain highly related CTns suggesting recent horizontal gene transfer. Several elements were capable of excision and conjugative transfer. The presence of antibiotic resistance genes and genes predicted to promote adaptation to the intestinal environment suggests that CTns play a role in the interaction of C. difficile with its human host.
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spelling pubmed-31580752011-08-29 Genetic Organisation, Mobility and Predicted Functions of Genes on Integrated, Mobile Genetic Elements in Sequenced Strains of Clostridium difficile Brouwer, Michael S. M. Warburton, Philip J. Roberts, Adam P. Mullany, Peter Allan, Elaine PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: Clostridium difficile is the leading cause of hospital-associated diarrhoea in the US and Europe. Recently the incidence of C. difficile-associated disease has risen dramatically and concomitantly with the emergence of ‘hypervirulent’ strains associated with more severe disease and increased mortality. C. difficile contains numerous mobile genetic elements, resulting in the potential for a highly plastic genome. In the first sequenced strain, 630, there is one proven conjugative transposon (CTn), Tn5397, and six putative CTns (CTn1, CTn2 and CTn4-7), of which, CTn4 and CTn5 were capable of excision. In the second sequenced strain, R20291, two further CTns were described. RESULTS: CTn1, CTn2 CTn4, CTn5 and CTn7 were shown to excise from the genome of strain 630 and transfer to strain CD37. A putative CTn from R20291, misleadingly termed a phage island previously, was shown to excise and to contain three putative mobilisable transposons, one of which was capable of excision. In silico probing of C. difficile genome sequences with recombinase gene fragments identified new putative conjugative and mobilisable transposons related to the elements in strains 630 and R20291. CTn5-like elements were described occupying different insertion sites in different strains, CTn1-like elements that have lost the ability to excise in some ribotype 027 strains were described and one strain was shown to contain CTn5-like and CTn7-like elements arranged in tandem. Additionally, using bioinformatics, we updated previous gene annotations and predicted novel functions for the accessory gene products on these new elements. CONCLUSIONS: The genomes of the C. difficile strains examined contain highly related CTns suggesting recent horizontal gene transfer. Several elements were capable of excision and conjugative transfer. The presence of antibiotic resistance genes and genes predicted to promote adaptation to the intestinal environment suggests that CTns play a role in the interaction of C. difficile with its human host. Public Library of Science 2011-08-18 /pmc/articles/PMC3158075/ /pubmed/21876735 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0023014 Text en Brouwer et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Brouwer, Michael S. M.
Warburton, Philip J.
Roberts, Adam P.
Mullany, Peter
Allan, Elaine
Genetic Organisation, Mobility and Predicted Functions of Genes on Integrated, Mobile Genetic Elements in Sequenced Strains of Clostridium difficile
title Genetic Organisation, Mobility and Predicted Functions of Genes on Integrated, Mobile Genetic Elements in Sequenced Strains of Clostridium difficile
title_full Genetic Organisation, Mobility and Predicted Functions of Genes on Integrated, Mobile Genetic Elements in Sequenced Strains of Clostridium difficile
title_fullStr Genetic Organisation, Mobility and Predicted Functions of Genes on Integrated, Mobile Genetic Elements in Sequenced Strains of Clostridium difficile
title_full_unstemmed Genetic Organisation, Mobility and Predicted Functions of Genes on Integrated, Mobile Genetic Elements in Sequenced Strains of Clostridium difficile
title_short Genetic Organisation, Mobility and Predicted Functions of Genes on Integrated, Mobile Genetic Elements in Sequenced Strains of Clostridium difficile
title_sort genetic organisation, mobility and predicted functions of genes on integrated, mobile genetic elements in sequenced strains of clostridium difficile
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3158075/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21876735
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0023014
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