Pan-Genome Analysis of Staphylococcus aureus Reveals Key Factors Influencing Genomic Plasticity

The massive quantities of bacterial genomic data being generated have facilitated in-depth analyses of bacteria for pan-genomic studies. However, the pan-genome compositions of one species differed significantly between different studies, so we used Staphylococcus aureus as a model organism to explore the influences driving bacterial pan-genome composition. We selected a series of diverse strains for pan-genomic analysis to explore the pan-genomic composition of S. aureus at the species level and the actual contribution of influencing factors (sequence type [ST], source of isolation, country of isolation, and date of collection) to pan-genome composition. We found that the distribution of core genes in bacterial populations restrained under different conditions differed significantly and showed “local core gene regions” in the same ST. Therefore, we propose that ST may be a key factor driving the dynamic distribution of bacterial genomes and that phylogenetic analyses using whole-genome alignment are no longer appropriate in populations containing multiple ST strains. Pan-genomic analysis showed that some of the housekeeping genes of multilocus sequence typing (MLST) are carried at less than 60% in S. aureus strains. Consequently, we propose a new set of marker genes for the classification of S. aureus, which provides a reference for finding a new set of housekeeping genes to apply to MLST. In this study, we explored the role of driving factors influencing pan-genome composition, providing new insights into the study of bacterial pan-genomes. IMPORTANCE We sought to explore the impact of driving factors influencing pan-genome composition using Staphylococcus aureus as a model organism to provide new insights for the study of bacterial pan-genomes. We believe that the sequence type (ST) of the strains under consideration plays a significant role in the dynamic distribution of bacterial genes. Our findings indicate that there are a certain number of essential genes in Staphylococcus aureus; however, the number of core genes is not as high as previously thought. The new classification method proposed herein suggests that a new set of housekeeping genes more suitable for Staphylococcus aureus must be identified to improve the current classification status of this species.