Continuous Genomic Surveillance Monitored the In Vivo Evolutionary Trajectories of Vibrio parahaemolyticus and Identified a New Virulent Genotype

Abstract

Our ability to predict evolutionary trajectories of pathogens is one of the promising leverages to fight against the pandemic disease, yet few studies have addressed this question in situ, due to the difficulty in monitoring the milestone evolutionary events for a given pathogen and in understanding the evolutionary strategies. In this study, we monitored the real-time evolution of Vibrio parahaemolyticus in response to successive antibiotic treatment in three shrimp farms in North China from 2011 to 2018 by whole-genome sequencing. Results showed that the stepwise emergence of resistance was associated with the antibiotic usage. Genomic analysis of resistant isolates showed that the acquisition of the resistant mobile genetic elements flanked by an insertion sequence (ISVal1) closely mirrored the antibiotics used in shrimp farms since 2014. Next, we also identified 50 insertion sites of ISVal1 in the chromosome, which facilitated the formation of pathogenicity islands (PAIs) and fitness islands in the following years. Further, horizontal transfers of a virulent trh-nik-ure genomic island (GI) and two GIs improving the fitness have been observed in two farms since 2016. In this case study, we proposed that the insertion sequence triggered four major evolutionary events during the outbreaks of shrimp disease in three farms, including horizontal transfer of transposon (HTT) (stage 1), the formation of resistance islands (stage 2) and the PAIs (stage 3), and horizontal transfer of the PAIs (stage 4). This study presented the first in vivo evolutionary trajectories for a given bacterial pathogen, which helps us to understand the emergence mechanisms of new genotypes. IMPORTANCE Most human infectious diseases originate from animals. Thus, how to reduce or prevent pandemic zoonoses before they emerge in people is becoming a critical issue. Continuous genomic surveillance of the evolutionary trajectories of potential human pathogens on farms is a promising strategy to realize early warning. Here, we conducted an 8-year surveillance of Vibrio parahaemolyticus in three shrimp farms. The results showed that the use of antibiotics and horizontal transfer of transposons (HTT) drove the evolution of V. parahaemolyticus, which could be divided into four stages: HTT, formation of resistance islands, formation of pathogenicity islands (PAIs), and horizontal transfer of PAIs. This study presented the first in vivo monitoring of evolutionary trajectories for a given bacterial pathogen, providing valuable information for the prevention of pandemic zoonoses.

Exploring the genetic diversity of Edwardsiella ictaluri in Vietnamese striped catfish (Pangasianodon hypophthalmus) farms over a 20-year period

“…Local adaptation of bacterial pathogens is highly likely if these production systems experienced low level disease outbreaks which had been tolerated or poorly controlled. In fact, local adaptation in aquatic bacterial populations has previously been reported in other aquatic pathogenic species (Du et al, 2019;Fu et al, 2021), thus the same may also be true for E. ictaluri. These findings present a challenge for ongoing vaccination programs and current work is exploring the influence of genotypic shifts in relation to circulating antigenic profiles.…”

Distinct dynamics of Vibrio parahaemolyticus populations in two farming models

“…V. parahaemolyticus strains harbouring colistin resistance gene mcr-1 were also recently identified, presenting a significant threat to public health (Lei et al, 2019). The heavy use of antibiotics also triggered the frequent horizontal gene transfer (HGT) of resistant and virulent genomic islands amongst the various genotypes of V. parahaemolyticus in shrimp ponds (Fu et al, 2021a). To further distinguish the genotype of V. parahaemolyticus, multilocus sequence typing (MLST) based on sequence polymorphisms of seven housekeeping genes has been established to prospectively identify the genotypes of V. parahaemolyticus (González-Escalona et al, 2008).…”

“…The heavy use of antibiotics also triggered the frequent horizontal gene transfer (HGT) of resistant and virulent genomic islands amongst the various genotypes of V . parahaemolyticus in shrimp ponds (Fu et al, 2021a). To further distinguish the genotype of V .…”