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27 - 28 - 29 May 2013
Saint-Malo
FRANCE
This symposium is arranged by:
French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES),
French Institute for Public Health Surveillance (InVS),
French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA),
Institut Pasteur,
High Institute for Animal Production and Agro-Business (ISPAIA)
and ZOOPOLE.
SYMPOSIUM SECRETARIAT
ISPAIA – BP 7 – 22440 PLOUFRAGAN – France
Tel. +33 2 96 78 61 30 - Fax; +33 2 96 78 61 31
ispaia@zoopole.asso.fr - www.zoopole.asso.fr
Salmonella and Salmonellosis 2013
Massive parallel sequencing identify
Salmonella single‐nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers
for host origin and antimicrobial resistance
Min YUE1, Robert SCHMIEDER2, Jeff WASHELESKI3, Shaohua ZHAO4,
Robert A. EDWARDS2,5, George P. FRASER3, Patrick F. MCDERMOTT4, Shelley C. RANKIN1
and Dieter M. SCHIFFERLI1, *
1
Department of Pathobiology, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, PENNSYLVANIA, USA;
2
Department of Computer Science, College of Sciences, San Diego State University,
SAN DIEGO, California, USA;
3
Pennsylvania Department of Health, Bureau of Laboratories, Exton, PENNSYLVANIA, USA;
4
Division of Animal and Food Microbiology, Office of Research, Center for Veterinary Medicine,
U.S. Food and Drug Administration, LAUREL, Maryland, USA;
5
Mathematics and Computer Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory,
ARGONNE, Illinois, USA
INTRODUCTION
Salmonella enterica serovars form a group of pathogens that differ widely in their host range within
mammals and other animals (4). The more than 2,600 different serovars can be subdivided into three
groups on the basis of host prevalence. The first group consists of host‐restricted serovars. These
typically cause systemic disease in a limited number of phylogenetically related species. For example,
S. Typhi and Gallinarum are almost exclusively associated with systemic disease in humans and fowl,
respectively. The second group includes host‐adapted strains. These are primarily associated with one
or two closely related host species but may also infrequently cause disease in other hosts. For
example, S. Dublin and Choleraesuis are generally associated with severe systemic disease in
ruminants and pigs respectively. The third group comprises broad range colonizers, such as S.
Typhimurium that usually induce gastroenteritis in a variety of unrelated host species, including
humans, livestock, wild mammals and birds. However, even these serovars demonstrate specificity by
behaving differently in distinct hosts, S. Typhimurium causing a systemic disease in rodents.
Moreover, some strains of S. Typhimurium variants have a narrow host range, while others are clearly
able to infect and persist in multiple species (5). Most intriguing are the invasive S. Typhimurium that
are involved in bloodstream infection in African adults and children, with an associated case fatality of
20‐25% (1), which suggests that specific strains of S. Typhimurium might have become host‐adapted,
or even host‐restricted in Africa. Although evolution to host‐restriction involves a genomic
degradation, non‐synonymous SNPs might participate in this process. A typical example of the impact
of allelic variants on host specificity is the FimH adhesin of S. Gallinarum type 1 fimbriae that mediates
mannose‐resistant binding to chicken leucocytes (2) and efficient systemic bacterial dissemination
and colonization of internal organs in chicks (3). Switching this FimH for the mannose‐sensitive type 1
fimbrial adhesin, which varies only by 5 amino acids, affected significantly all the latter phenotypes
(3).
The hypothesis of this study is that the genetic variation in certain colonization factors, including
fimbrial adhesins, regulates host range and the degree of host adaptation. We recently started to test
this hypothesis by genome‐wide association studies with a focus on fimbrial adhesins. Eight adhesin
genes of 48 S. Newport genomes were sequenced (6). The number of SNPs varied between 5 and 85
for each of the 8 genes, whereas each adhesin was represented by 6 to 12 different alleles. Phylogenic
trees clearly separated each of five adhesins into two separate groups. In support of our hypothesis,
FimH of the two groups differentiated strains from bovine and non‐bovine origin. The allelic adhesin
groups correlated also significantly with strains that did or did not show antimicrobial resistance (and
with or without mobile DNA elements carrying antibiotic resistance genes such as plasmids or
integrons). This finding was consistent with a second hypothesis which suggested that adhesin alleles
of persistently colonizing Salmonella optimize the opportunity for bacterial encounters and horizontal
gene transfer (HGT) in intestines, resulting in the accumulation of antimicrobial resistance genes in
such strains.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
We used the previously developed targeted sequencing strategy with the Fluidigm Access Array
system and the Roche 454 sequencer (6).
RESULTS
To test whether the potential associations of adhesin alleles with host or antibiotic resistance can be
confirmed with another Salmonella serovar, the sequence of all the 15 predicted fimbrial adhesin
genes detectable in S. Typhimurium (5) and of three genes for outer membrane proteins with
potential adhesive properties were determined for 394 well‐characterized S. Typhimurium isolates.
The lpfD and fimH genes had the highest numbers of allelic variants (Table 1). 174 lpfD genes had a
unique 7 base pair deletion, resulting in a pseudogene. The nucleotide diversity of the 220 lpfD
sequences lacking the deletion (*) was lower (π= 0.0001050). 173 isolates lacked the pefA gene,
suggesting that these strains also lacked the plasmid that normally carries the pef gene cluster. There
was no association between the lpfD deletion and the absence of pefA.
Phylogenetic grouping of strains with individual genes showed that there was a statistically significant
association of the FimH‐2 allele with horses. Significant associations were also determined for the
FimH‐3 or BcfD‐3 alleles and antibiotic resistance. The lpfD genes that encoded the full protein were
positively associated with bovine and porcine hosts, while the presence of pefA correlated negatively
with bovine hosts.
The study was further expanded by collecting and analyzing a total of 1442 available Salmonella fimH
sequences from 74 serovars (NCBI and Welcome Trust Sanger Institute). A total of 131 fimH and 90
FimH alleles were identified. The sequences were from strains collected over 20 years (Fig. 1) and
originated mainly from North America (Fig. 2).
Although most serovars were carrying different fimH alleles, many of them were mainly associated
with one to two of these alleles (Fig. 3). One to five additional alleles per serovar represented typically
less than 10% of all the alleles. Thus each serovar carried only a selected small group of fimH allele,
some only one (e.g. S. Dublin). Conversely, several fimH alleles were serovar‐specific, being identified
only or mainly in one or two serovars. The data also highlighted large numbers of negative
associations between specific serovars and fimH alleles.
Fig. 4 confirms well‐known serovar specificities for hosts (e.g. S. Enteritidis and the chicken‐egg‐
human link). Moreover, fimH SNPs were associated with original hosts, clinical relevance or
environments. Most noticeable was the preponderance of the fimH2 (which also serves as the
reference allele) for serovar Typhimurium in humans and all studied farm animals. This was in
contrast with fimH1, which was not found on equine isolates. In contrast to the nonsynonymous (ns)
fimH SNPs for the human specific serovars, several ns SNPs were associated with bovine, equine and
porcine isolates or with plants (not shown).
CONCLUSION
In addition to previous findings with the fimH of S. Gallinarum, the presented results further support
our hypothesis that allelic variation of Salmonella adhesins participate in specific binding phenotypes
that are directed towards preferential host species or environmental niches, potentially favoring the
accumulation of antibiotic resistance genes by HGT. Identified allele‐host associations should serve as
diagnostic and epidemiological tools to confirm and complement serotyping.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT:
Funding from NIH NIAID:AI098041 (to D.M.S.), NSF DBI:0850356 (to R.A.E.), and Wellcome Trust
(DECIPHER project).
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Fig. 1: Numbers of Salmonella strains Fig. 2: Percentages of Salmonella strains
sampled per year. sampled per geographic region
Fig. 4. Genetic relation of major allele, and their host and reservoir distribution.
Fig. 3. Most frequent fimH and FimH alleles versus specific serovars. The reference
allele fimH2 is from S. Typhimurium strain SL1344.