Phylogenetic Analysis of Bacillus cereus Isolates from Severe Systemic Infections Using Multilocus Sequence Typing Scheme

Abstract

Bacillus cereus strains from cases of severe or lethal systemic infections, including respiratory symptoms cases, were analyzed using multilocus sequence typing scheme of B. cereus MLST database. The isolates were evenly distributed between the two main clades, and 60% of them had allele profiles new to the database. Half of the collection's strains clustered in a lineage neighboring Bacillus anthracis phylogenetic origin. Strains from lethal cases with respiratory symptoms were allocated in both main clades. This is the first report of strains causing respiratory symptoms to be identified as genetically distant from B. anthracis. The phylogenetic location of the presented here strains was compared with all previously submitted to the database isolates from systemic infections, and were found to appear in the same clusters where clinical isolates from other studies had been assigned. It seems that the pathogenic strains are forming clusters on the phylogenetic tree.

Clonal population structure of Legionella pneumophila inferred from allelic profiling

“…Since then, this robust and portable technique (or variations of it) has been applied to the study of genetic diversity and clonal expansion, and to the long-term epidemiological analysis of microbial populations (see http://pubmlst.org/ and http://www.mlst.net/) (Giske et al, 2006;Paraskevopoulos et al, 2006;Vassileva et al, 2006). (Stone & Abu Kwaik, 1998), aspartate-b-semialdehyde dehydrogenase (Harb & Abu Kwaik, 1998), macrophage infectivity potentiator (Engleberg et al, 1989), a major outer-membrane protein of~29 kDa (Ehret & Ruckdeschel, 1985; accession no.…”

“…Since then, this robust and portable technique (or variations of it) has been applied to the study of genetic diversity and clonal expansion, and to the long-term epidemiological analysis of microbial populations (see http://pubmlst.org/ and http://www.mlst.net/) (Giske et al, 2006;Paraskevopoulos et al, 2006;Vassileva et al, 2006).…”

Distribution of lag-1 Alleles and Sequence-Based Types among Legionella pneumophila Serogroup 1 Clinical and Environmental Isolates in the United States

“…The SBT database, which is available through the website of the European Working Group for Legionella Infections (EWGLI) (www.ewgli.org), allows assignment of the sevendigit allelic profile for alleles in a predetermined order (flaA, pilE, asd, mip, mompS, proA, and neuA) and a corresponding sequence type (ST) to L. pneumophila isolates. SBT is based on the same approach as multilocus sequence typing (28) and, similarly to multilocus sequence typing, may be applied to the study of genetic diversity and clonal expansion of microbial populations (7,37). Analysis of the phylogenetic relationships between L. pneumophila serogroup 1 STs identified in our study was used to provide insight on how the MAb2 epitope might have emerged and imparted enhanced virulence.…”

Complete Genome Sequence of Bacillus cereus NC7401, Which Produces High Levels of the Emetic Toxin Cereulide

“…acillus cereus is a ubiquitous spore-forming bacterium that has been isolated from people with food-borne illnesses and other infections (4,9,11,19). Food poisoning caused by B. cereus is divided into two types according to symptoms: vomiting type or diarrhea type.…”