1887

Microbiology Society logo

Volume 150, Issue 3

Groupings of highly similar major surface protein (p44)-encoding paralogues: a potential index of genetic diversity amongst isolates of Free

Abstract

is a tick-borne bacterium that is zoonotic in the USA and southern Europe, but although the bacterium is endemic in the UK, no cases of clinical human disease have yet been detected in that country. Potential genomic differences amongst UK and USA isolates were investigated by comparing partial 16S rRNA gene and p44 paralogue sequences amplified by PCR from 10 UK ruminant or tick isolates, with published sequences from USA isolates. No significant clustering among the isolates was resolved by phylogenetic analysis of alignments containing 16S rRNA gene sequences. The structure of predicted proteins encoded by p44 paralogues, amplified from 81 clones obtained from the UK isolates, was similar to that described previously for paralogues from USA isolates. Paralogue sequences did not obviously cluster by country, host species or isolate, but most paralogues were 30–70 % similar, making meaningful alignments difficult. Some p44 paralogues from different isolates formed clusters of sequences that were more than 90 % similar to one another (‘similarity groups’). The paralogues in each cluster were particularly similar in gene regions most likely to code for ligands. In the sample studied, 95 % of the similarity groups comprised paralogues from either USA or UK isolates only and occurred with greater frequency amongst paralogues from USA rather than UK isolates. These findings raise the hypothesis that sequences of paralogues in similarity groups may provide an index of adaptation of different ‘strains' of to specific reservoir hosts in different geographical locations, and any associations with infectivity for different species including humans.

  • Received:
  • Accepted:
  • Revised:
  • Published Online:
Keyword(s): HGE, human granulocytic ehrlichiosis
SGM
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.26648-0
2004-03-01
2024-04-19
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/micro/150/3/mic1500727.html?itemId=/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.26648-0&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. Barbet A. F. 8 other authors Meeus P. F. M., Bélanger M. 2003; Expression of multiple outer membrane protein sequence variants from a single genomic locus of Anaplasma phagocytophilum. Infect Immun 71:1706–1718 [CrossRef]
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Carter S. E., Ravyn M. D., Xu Y., Johnson R. C. 2001; Molecular typing of the etiologic agent of human granulocytic ehrlichiosis. J Clin Microbiol 39:3398–3401 [CrossRef]
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Caspersen K., Park J. H., Patil S., Dumler J. S. 2002; Genetic variability and stability of Anaplasma phagocytophila msp2 (p44. Infect Immun 70:1230–1234 [CrossRef]
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Chen S. M., Dumler J. S., Bakken J. S., Walker D. H. 1994; Identification of a granulocytotropic Ehrlichia species as the etiologic agent of human disease. J Clin Microbiol 32:589–595
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Dumler J. S., Barbet A. F., Bekker C. P. J., Dasch G. A., Palmer G. H., Ray S. C., Rikihisa Y., Rurangirwa F. R. 2001; Reorganization of the genera of the families Rickettsiaceae and Anaplasmataceae in the order Rickettsiales: unification of some species ofEhrlichia with Anaplasma, Cowdria with Ehrlichia and Ehrlichia with Neorickettsia, descriptions of six new combinations and designations of Ehrlichia equi and ‘HGE agent’ as subjective synonyms of Ehrlichia phagocytophila. Int J Syst Evol Microbiol 51:2145–2165 [CrossRef]
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Felsenstein J. 1989; phylip: Phylogeny Inference Package (Version 3.5c). Cladistics 5:164–166
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Foggie A. 1951; Studies on the infectious agent of tick-borne fever in sheep. J Pathol Bacteriol 63:1–15 [CrossRef]
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Foley J. E., Kramer V., Weber D. 2002; Experimental infection of dusky-footed wood rats (Neotoma fuscipes) with Ehrlichia phagocytophila sensu lato. J Wildl Dis 38:194–198 [CrossRef]
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Korber B. 2000; HIV signature and sequence variation analysis. In Computational Analysis of HIV Molecular Sequences pp 171–204 Edited by Rodrigo A. G., Learn G. H. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer;
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Lin Q., Zhi N., Ohashi N., Horowitz H. W., Aguero-Rosenfeld M. E., Raffalli J., Wormser G. P., Rikihisa Y. 2002; Analysis of sequences and loci of p44 homologs expressed by Anaplasma phagocytophila in acutely infected patients. J Clin Microbiol 40:2981–2988 [CrossRef]
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Lotric-Furlan S., Petrovec M., Zupanc T. A., Nicholson W. L., Sumner J. W., Childs J. E., Strle F. 1998; Human granulocytic ehrlichiosis in Europe: clinical and laboratory findings for four patients from Slovenia. Clin Infect Dis 27:424–428 [CrossRef]
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Massung R. F., Slater K., Owens J. H., Nicholson W. L., Mather T. N., Solberg V. B., Olson J. G. 1998; Nested PCR assay for detection of granulocytic ehrlichiae. J Clin Microbiol 36:1090–1095
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Massung R. F., Mauel M. J., Owens J. H., Allan N., Courtney J. W., Stafford K. C., III, Mather T. N. 2002; Genetic variants of Ehrlichia phagocytophila, Rhode Island and Connecticut. Emerg Infect Dis 8:467–472 [CrossRef]
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Murphy C. I., Storey J. R., Recchia J., Doros-Richert L. A., Gingrich-Baker C., Munroe K., Bakken J. S., Coughlin R. T., Beltz G. A. 1998; Major antigenic proteins of the agent of human granulocytic ehrlichiosis are encoded by members of a multigene family. Infect Immun 66:3711–3718
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Ogden N. H., Woldehiwet Z., Hart C. A. 1998; Granulocytic Ehrlichiosis: an emerging or rediscovered tick-borne disease?. J Med Microbiol 47:475–482 [CrossRef]
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Ogden N. H., Casey A. N. J., French N. P., Bown K. J., Adams J. D. W., Woldehiwet Z. 2002; Natural Ehrlichia phagocytophila transmission coefficients from sheep ‘carriers' to Ixodes ricinus ticks vary with the numbers of feeding ticks. Parasitology 124:127–136
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Page R. D. M. 1996; treeview: an application to display phylogenetic trees on personal computers. Comput Appl Biosci 12:357–358
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Park J., Choi K. S., Dumler J. S. 2003; Major Surface Protein 2 of Anaplasma phagocytophilum facilitates adherence to granulocytes. Infect Immun 71:4018–4025 [CrossRef]
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Pusterla N., Anderson R. J., House J. K., Pusterla J. B., DeRock E., Madigan J. E. 2001; Susceptibility of cattle to infection with Ehrlichia equi and the agent of human granulocytic ehrlichiosis. J Am Vet Med Assoc 218:1160–1162 [CrossRef]
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Ristic M., Huxsoll D. L. 1984; Tribe Ehrlichieae (Philip 1957). In Bergey's Manual of Systematic Bacteriology vol. 1 pp 704–710 Edited by Kreig N. R., Holt J. G. Baltimore: Williams & Watkins;
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Stuen S., Van De Pol I., Bergstrom K., Schouls L. M. 2002; Identification of Anaplasma phagocytophila (formerly Ehrlichia phagocytophila) variants in blood from sheep in Norway. J Clin Microbiol 40:3192–3197 [CrossRef]
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Sumption K. J., Wright D. J. M., Cutler S. J., Dale B. A. S. 1995; Human Ehrlichiosis in the UK. Lancet 346:1487–1488
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Thomas D., Sillis M., Coleman T. J., Kench S. M., Ogden N. H., Salmon R., Morgan-Capner P., Softley P., Meadows D. 1998; Low rates of ehrlichiosis and Lyme borreliosis in English farmworkers. Epidemiol Infect 121:609–614 [CrossRef]
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Tuomi J. 1967; Experimental studies on bovine tick-borne fever. (3) Immunological strain differences. Acta Pathol Microbiol Scand 71:89–100
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Woldehiwet Z. 1981; Observations on the immune responses of sheep infected with Cytoecetes phagocytophila. PhD thesis University of Edinburgh;
  26. Woldehiwet Z., Scott G. R. 1993; Tick-borne (pasture) fever. In Rickettsial and Chlamydial Diseases of Domestic Animals pp 244–254 Edited by Woldehiwet Z., Ristic M. Oxford: Pergamon Press;
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Zhi N., Ohashi N., Rikihisa Y. 1999; Multiple p44 genes encoding major outer membrane proteins are expressed in the human granulocytic ehrlichiosis agent. J Biol Chem 274:17828–17836 [CrossRef]
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Zhi N., Ohashi N., Tajima T., Mott J., Stich R. W., Grover D., Telford S. R. 3rd, Lin Q., Rikihisa Y. 2002a; Transcript heterogeneity of the p44 multigene family in a human granulocytic ehrlichiosis agent transmitted by ticks. Infect Immun 70:1175–1184 [CrossRef]
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Zhi N., Ohashi N., Rikihisa Y. 2002b; Activation of a p44 pseudogene in Anaplasma phagocytophila by bacterial RNA splicing: a novel mechanism for post-transcriptional regulation of a multigene family encoding immunodominant major outer membrane proteins. Mol Microbiol 46:135–145 [CrossRef]
     [Google Scholar]
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.26648-0
Loading
Groupings of highly similar major surface protein (p44)-encoding paralogues: a potential index of genetic diversity amongst isolates of Anaplasma phagocytophilum
Microbiology 150, 727 (2004); https://doi.org/10.1099/mic.0.26648-0
/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.26648-0
/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.26648-0
Loading

Data & Media loading...

Most cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error