No abstract

Moraxella bovoculi strain KZ-1 was isolated from cattle that had symptoms of infectious bovine keratoconjunctivitis (IBK) in northern Kazakhstan. Here, we report the draft genome sequence of this strain.

Francisella tularensis subsp. mediasiatica is the least studied among the four F. tularensis subspecies. We present here the genome data of F. tularensis subsp. mediasiatica 240, isolated in the southern region of Kazakhstan.

This article describes Bacillus anthracis strains isolated in Kazakhstan since the 1950s until year 2016 from sixty-one independent events associated with anthrax in humans and animals. One hundred and fifty-four strains were first genotyped by Multiple Locus VNTR (variable number of tandem repeats) Analysis (MLVA) using 31 VNTR loci. Thirty-five MLVA31 genotypes were resolved, 28 belong to the A1/TEA group, five to A3/Sterne-Ames group, one to A4/Vollum and one to the B clade. This is the first report of the presence of the B-clade in Kazakhstan. The MLVA31 results and epidemiological data were combined to select a subset of seventy-nine representative strains for draft whole genome sequencing (WGS). Strains from Kazakhstan significantly enrich the known phylogeny of the Ames group polytomy, including the description of a new branch closest to the Texas, United States A.Br.Ames sublineage stricto sensu. Three among the seven currently defined branches in the TEA polytomy are present in Kazakhstan, “Tsiankovskii”, “Heroin”, and “Sanitary Technical Institute (STI)”. In particular, strains from the STI lineage are largely predominant in Kazakhstan and introduce numerous deep branching STI sublineages, demonstrating a high geographic correspondence between “STI” and Kazakhstan, Central Asia. This observation is a strong indication that the TEA polytomy emerged after the last political unification of Asian steppes in the fourteenth century of the Common Era. The phylogenetic analysis of the Kazakhstan data and of currently available WGS data of worldwide origin strengthens our understanding of B. anthracis geographic expansions in the past seven centuries.

I nfectious bovine keratoconjunctivitis (IBK), is a highly contagious and infectious disease of the bovine eye characterized by conjunctivitis and ulcerative keratitis that occurs worldwide (Holzhauer and Visser, 2004;Kneipp, 2021). Infectious keratoconjunctivitis also occurs in other domestic (Motha et al., 2003) and wild (Giacometti et al., 2002) species and is generally considered to be a multifactorial disease. The most commonly isolated pathogen from IBK is Moraxella bovis (M. bovis) (McConnel et al., 2007). The presence of M. bovoculi isolates in most eye samples taken from IBK-affected cattle suggests a role for M. bovoculi in pathogenesis (Angelos, 2010). The frequency of co-isolation of these two species may indicate that M. bovoculi serves as an opportunistic agent in IBK (Loy and Brodersen, 2014). In a recent study using the PCR method, M. bovoculi was detected in 75% of the samples of the total number of samples examined (Zheng et al., 2019). Other data on a positive correlation between the clinical signs of IBK and the presence of M. bovoculi also indirectly support that this organism is involved in the pathogenesis of IBK (Loy and Brodersen, 2014;Schnee et al., 2015).Pilin is known to be one of the key pathogenic factors in M. bovis, as this protein allows moraxella to "stick" to research Article Abstract | Moraxella bovoculi (M. bovoculi) is commonly isolated from clinical cases of infectious bovine keratoconjunctivitis (IBK), however, the exact role of M. bovoculi in this disease remains unclear. Experimental Moraxella bovis (M. bovis) and M. bovoculi vaccines to prevent IBK based on recombinant pathogenic factors have been evaluated as alternatives to whole cell vaccines. Pilin is one candidate antigen for M. bovoculi, and is a key pathogenic factor necessary for attachment of M. bovis to the surface of the eye epithelium. To evaluate pilA diversity amongst Kazakh isolates of M. bovoculi, the pilA gene sequence was determined for 35 isolates of M. bovoculi. Ten genotypes (gNA1-gNA10) were identified which were 96.1% to 99.8% identical. It was found that as a result of the replacement of cytosine with thymine at the 97th position of the gNA8 genotype, a stop codon resulted which, if expressed, would have resulted in a truncated PilA. Phylogenetic analyses of the deduced amino acid sequences of PilA from isolates from Kazakhstan, in comparison with previously defined PilA groups in M. bovoculi, established that 68% of the Kazakh isolates belonged to group A, 8.6% to groups C and F. It was found that despite these isolates originating from geographically close regions, some of the studied isolates had unique amino acid sequences that were assigned to new M. bovoculi PilA groups designated K (2 isolates), L (2 isolates), and M (1 isolate).

No abstract

We report here the draft genome sequences of three strains of Pasteurella multocida isolated in Kazakhstan from domestic animals that died due to hemorrhagic septicemia.

P regnancy-associated glycoproteins (PAGs) are proteins produced in ruminants by the extra-fetal tissues of the embryo (trophoblast) and placental epithelium (Green et al.