Complete genome of the Listeria monocytogenes strain AUF, used as a live listeriosis veterinary vaccine

Abstract

Listeria monocytogenes (Lm) is a highly pathogenic bacterium that can cause listeriosis, a relatively rare food-borne infectious disease that affects farm, domestic, wild animals and humans as well. The infected livestock is the frequent sources of Lm. Vaccination is one of the methods of controlling listeriosis in target farm animals to prevent Lm-associated food contamination. Here we report the complete sequence of the Lm strain AUF attenuated from a fully-virulent Lm strain by ultraviolet irradiation, successfully used since the 1960s as a live whole-cell veterinary vaccine. The de novo assembled genome consists of a circular chromosome of 2,942,932 bp length, including more than 2,800 CDSs, 17 pseudogenes, 5 antibiotic resistance genes, and 56/92 virulence genes. Two wild Lm strains, the EGD and the 10403S that is also used in cancer Immunotherapy, were the closest homologs for the Lm strain AUF. Although all three strains belonged to different sequence types (ST), namely ST12, ST85, and ST1538, they were placed in the same genetic lineage II, CC7.