Vibrio parahaemolyticus is an important human pathogen that has been isolated worldwide from clinical cases, most of which have been associated with seafood consumption. Environmental and clinical toxigenic strains of V. parahaemolyticus that were isolated in Mexico from 1998 to 2012, including those from the only outbreak that has been reported in this country, were characterized genetically to assess the presence of the O3:K6 pandemic clone, and their genetic relationship to strains that are related to the pandemic clonal complex (CC3). Pathogenic tdh+ and tdh+/trh+ strains were analyzed by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and multilocus sequence typing (MLST). Also, the entire genome of a Mexican O3:K6 strain was sequenced. Most of the strains were tdh/ORF8-positive and corresponded to the O3:K6 serotype. By PFGE and MLST, there was very close genetic relationship between ORF8/O3:K6 strains, and very high genetic diversities from non-pandemic strains. The genetic relationship is very close among O3:K6 strains that were isolated in Mexico and sequences that were available for strains in the CC3, based on the PubMLST database. The whole-genome sequence of CICESE-170 strain had high similarity with that of the reference RIMD 2210633 strain, and harbored 7 pathogenicity islands, including the 4 that denote O3:K6 pandemic strains. These results indicate that pandemic strains that have been isolated in Mexico show very close genetic relationship among them and with those isolated worldwide.

The coordinated efforts to stop the spread of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) include massive immunization of the population at a global scale. The humoral immunity against COVID-19 is conferred by neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) that occur during the post-infection period and upon vaccination. Here, we provide robust data showing that potent neutralizing antibodies are induced in convalescent patients of SARS-CoV-2 infection who have been immunized with different types of vaccines, and patients with no previous history of COVID-19 immunized with a mixed vaccination schedule regardless of the previous infection. More importantly, we showed that a heterologous prime-boost in individuals with Ad5-nCoV (Cansino) vaccine induces higher NAbs levels in comparison to a single vaccination scheme alone.

We report here the complete genome sequence of a marine Halopseudomonas aestusnigri strain isolated from asphalt sediments of the Gulf of Mexico. Studying the genomes of atypical environmental bacteria increases knowledge about the biology of microorganisms metabolizing pollutants and is also a biotechnological resource to develop bioremediation methods.

Globally, tuberculosis (TB) remains a prevalent threat to public health. In 2019, TB affected 10 million people and caused 1.4 million deaths. The major challenge for controlling this infectious disease is the emergence and spread of drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of TB. The antibiotic streptomycin is not a current first-line anti-TB drug. However, WHO recommends its use in patients infected with a streptomycin-sensitive strain. Several mutations in the M. tuberculosisrpsL, rrs and gidB genes have proved association with streptomycin resistance. In this study, we performed a molecular analysis of these genes in clinical isolates to determine the prevalence of known or novel mutations. Here, we describe the genetic analysis outcome. Furthermore, a biocomputational analysis of the MtGidB L101F variant, the product of a novel mutation detected in gidB during molecular analysis, is also reported as a theoretical approach to study the apparent genotype-phenotype association.