Many of the original expectations have been accomplished, and we believe that with its unprecedented sensitivity and power, WGS has the potential to address many unanswered questions in the near future. However, caution is still needed when interpreting WGS data as there are some important limitations to be aware of, from correct interpretation of drug susceptibilities to the bioinformatic support needed.

Advances in whole genome sequencing (WGS) platforms and DNA library preparation have led to the development of methods for high throughput sequencing of bacterial genomes at a relatively low cost (Loman et al. 2012; Medini et al. 2008). WGS offers unprecedented resolution for determining degrees of relatedness between strains of bacterial pathogens and has proven a powerful tool for microbial population studies and epidemiological investigations (Harris et al. 2010; Lienau et al. 2011; Holt et al. 2009; Ashton, Peters, et al. 2015). The potential utility of WGS to public health microbiology has been highlighted previously (Koser et al. 2012; Kwong et al. 2013; Reuter et al. 2013; Joensen et al. 2014; Nair et al. 2014; Bakker et al. 2014; D Auria et al. 2014). Here we report, for the first time, the routine use of WGS as the primary test for identification, surveillance and outbreak investigation by a national reference laboratory. We present data on how this has revolutionised public health microbiology for one of the most common bacterial pathogens in the United Kingdom, the Salmonellae.

We have identified six monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) mapping to both linear and conformation-dependent epitopes within the V2 region of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 clone HXB10. Three of the MAbs (12b, 66c, and 66a) were able to neutralize the molecular clones HXB10 and HXB2, with titers in the range of 9.5 to 20.0 g/ml. MAbs mapping to the crown of the V2 loop (12b, 60b, and 74) bound poorly to cell surface-expressed oligomeric gp120, suggesting an explanation for the poor or negligible neutralizing activity of MAbs to this region. In contrast, MAbs 12b and 60b demonstrated good reactivity with recombinant gp120 in an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay format, suggesting differential epitope exposure between the recombinant and native forms of gp120. Cross-competition analysis of these MAbs and additional V1V2 MAbs for gp120 binding enabled us to assign the MAbs to six groups (A to F). Selection of neutralization escape mutants with MAbs 10/76b and 11/68b, belonging to nonoverlapping competition groups, identified amino acid changes at residues 165 (I to T) and 185 (D to N), respectively. Interestingly, these escape variants remained sensitive to neutralization by the nonselecting V2 MAbs. All MAbs demonstrated good recognition of IIIB viral gp120 yet failed to neutralize nonclonal stocks of IIIB. In addition, MAbs 12b and 62c bound MN and RF viral gp120, respectively, yet failed to neutralize the respective isolates. Cloning and expression of a library of gp120 and V1V2 fragments from IIIB-, MN-, and RF-infected H9 cultures identified a number of polymorphic sites, resulting in antigenic variation and subsequent loss of V2 MAb recognition. In contrast, the V3 region from the clones of the same isolates showed no amino acid changes, suggesting that the V2 region is polymorphic in long-term-passaged laboratory isolates and may account for the reduced antibody recognition observed.* Corresponding author. 222 MATERIALS AND METHODS Sources of reagents.The following gp120 MAbs were used for neutralization and/or gp120-binding studies: 11/65a and 33/79, specific for amino acids (aa) 102 to 121 within C1; 11/4c, 11/41e, and 10/76b, specific for aa 162 to 171 (22); 11/68b, CRA-3, CRA-4, and CRA-5, specific for conserved conformation-dependent epitopes within V2 (22); 39.13g, specific for a conserved conformation-dependent epitope involved in CD4 binding (4, 23); 38.1a, specific for aa 430 to 447 (4, 21); 41.1, specific for a conformation-dependent epitope within V3 (19); and MAb 11/85b, mapping to aa 311 to 321 in V3 (19).Recombinant CHO-expressed gp120 and peptides 740.13 (GEIKNCSFNIST SIRGKVQK), 740.14 (STSIRGKVQKEYAFFYKLDI), and 740.15 (EYAFFY KLDIIPIDNDTTSY) are members of the full set of gp120 overlapping peptides, which were obtained from the Medical Research Council AIDS Directed Programme. The control Raf-c peptide (IVQQFGYQRRASDDGKLTD) was a gift from C. Marshall, Institute of Cancer Research, London, United Kingdom. IIIB, MN, and RF viral stocks were obtained from the Medical Research Council AIDS Dir...

We constructed a number of HXB2 viruses chimeric for the gp 120 glycoprotein derived from a number of viable molecular clones obtained from a primary isolate. Comparative biological characterization of the parental primary viruses with the gp 120.HXB2 chimeras demonstrated identical patterns of cell tropism and cytopathicity. Furthermore, both parental and chimeric viruses were insensitive to neutralization by sCD4 and a panel of conformation-dependent monoclonal antibodies, demonstrating that transfer of the gp 120 protein alone was sufficient to confer a "neutralization-resistant" phenotype to the T-cell-adapted clone HXB2. We assessed the contribution of gp 120 epitopes to the neutralizing immune response by comparing the sensitivity of these viruses to neutralization by a panel of sera from HIV-infected individuals. Seven of eleven sera tested were able to neutralize HXB2 and two or more of the chimeric viruses; in contrast, only one serum neutralized more than one of the parental primary virus clones. The association of gp 120-gp41 envelope at the surface of infected PBMC cultures was measured in the presence or absence of soluble CD4. No differences in CD4-induced gp 120 dissociation were seen between the chimeric and parental virus-infected cultures. Since gp 120 conformation appeared the same between primary and chimeric viruses, we suggest that the ability of human sera to neutralize the chimeric viruses may be mediated by epitopes within gp41.

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The nucleotide sequence of a 2384 bp portion within the unique short (Us) region of the herpesvirus simiae (simian herpes B virus; SHBV) genome is presented. A partial and a complete open reading frame (ORF) were found within this nucleotide sequence. The partial ORF encodes the C terminus (147 amino acids) of a protein kinase which is highly conserved in the herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) and type 2 (HSV-2) and simian agent 8 (SA8) U s regions. The complete ORF is located 3' to the partial ORF within the 2384 bp sequence and encodes a 593 amino acid g|ycoprotein which appears to be closely related to the SA8 glycoprotein G (gG), but shares little amino acid similarity with gG of HSV-1 and -2. However, the complete ORF shares certain features conserved among most alphaherpesvirus gGs, notably three highly conserved cysteine residues and an adjacent N-glycosylation site. Therefore, it was concluded that this complete ORF encodes the SHBV gG. The 358 amino acid C-terminal portion of SHBV gG was expressed in Escherichia coli as a fusion protein and this was detected by immunoblotting with sera from cynomolgus monkeys which were either experimentally or naturally infected with SHBV. The purified fusion protein was inoculated into rabbits to raise an antiserum which recognized a number of apparently SHBV gGspecific protein bands in extracts from SHBV-infected simian cells.

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Whole genome comparison has revealed the presence of short sequence repeats (also called mycobacterial interspersed repeat units and variable number tandem repeat units) used for genotyping schemes. In this study, we have used deletion analysis, single nucleotide polymorphism data and spoligotype taken from published data from others to investigate the evolution of selected repeats that form the common denominators of the majority of established schemes. Analysis of the number of repeats per locus from over 400 isolates revealed that the general trend globally appears to be loss of repeats in modern strains compared with ancestral strains.