Molecular characterization of Brucella ovis in Argentina

Abstract

Brucellosis in rams is caused by Brucella ovis or Brucella melitensis and it is considered one of the most important infectious diseases of males in sheep-raising countries. Molecular characterization of Brucella spp. achieved by multi-locus variable number of tandem repeats analysis (MLVA) is a powerful tool to genotype Brucella spp. However, data regarding B. ovis genotyping is scarce. Thus, the aim of this study was to characterize the molecular diversity of B. ovis field-strains in Argentina. A total of 115 isolates of B. ovis from Argentina and Uruguay were genotyped using MLVA-16 and analyzed altogether with 14 publicly available B. ovis genotypes from Brazil. The Discriminatory Power (D) was 0.996 for MLVA-16 and 0.0998 for MLVA-8 and MLVA-11. Analysis of MLVA-16 revealed 100 different genotypes, all of them novel, including 90 unique ones. There was no correlation between geographical distribution and genotype and results showed a higher diversity within provinces than between provinces. Clustering analysis of the strains from Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil revealed that the 129 isolates were grouped into two clades. Whole Genome Sequencing analysis of the 19 B. ovis genomes available in public databases, and including some of the Argentinian strains used in this study, revealed clustering of the Argentinian isolates and closer relationship with B. ovis from New Zealand and Australia. This work adds new data to the poorly understood distribution map of genotypes regionally and worldwide for B. ovis and it constitutes the largest study of B. ovis molecular genotyping until now.

Brucella Genomics: Macro and Micro Evolution

“…The WGS analysis supported this continental segregation [ 117 ]. However, comparisons of different bacteria from smaller geographic areas by WGS and MLVA are not always straightforward, as it will be further discussed [ 26 , 117 , 118 , 119 , 120 ].…”

“…The use of MLVA has proved useful for tracking Brucella outbreaks or infection sources to study the molecular epidemiology of Brucella in specific countries [ 129 , 130 , 131 , 132 ] and in a worldwide context [ 98 ]. Despite its usefulness, the homoplasy in VNTR markers in some Brucella species, as B. abortus and B. ovis , lowers the levels of discrimination and resolution of cladograms as compared to WGS phylogenetic analysis [ 26 , 117 , 120 ]. To reduce homoplasy and to understand phylogenetic relationships deeper, a systematic approach in Brucella MLVA, is to use the most stable VNTRs or provide further weight to the markers [ 133 ].…”

Rapid Identification of Brucella Genus and Species In Silico and On-Site Using Novel Probes with CRISPR/Cas12a

“…The genomes of B. ovis in the three databases (NCBI (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/datasets/genome/?taxon=234, accessed on 24 August 2022), BV-BCR (https://www.bv-brc.org/view/Taxonomy/234#view_tab= genomes, accessed on 20 November 2023), and JGI (https://gold.jgi.doe.gov/organisms? Organism.Organism+Name=brucella&setColumns=yes, accessed on 23 November 2023)) were duplicated and mainly derived from the article published by Alvarez et al [37]. The genomics data we used to construct BOPs were from the NCBI database.…”

Avances de la bioinformática en Costa Rica: vista retrospectiva y perspectivas

“…Hasta el momento, se han capacitado alrededor de 130 participantes del sector académico y de salud pública de América Latina. Esta oportunidad también ha ayudado a los investigadores costarricenses a avanzar en su trabajo colaborativo, lo que resultó en múltiples publicaciones (Alvarez et al, 2020;Baker et al, 2017;Chinen et al, 2016;Quesada-Gómez et al, 2015;Ramírez-Vargas et al, 2017;Suárez-Esquivel et al, 2017a;Suárez-Esquivel et al, 2017b;Suárez-Esquivel et al, 2020).…”