TY - JOUR
T1 - Diversification of Escherichia albertii H-Antigens and Development of H-Genotyping PCR
AU - Nakae, Koji
AU - Ooka, Tadasuke
AU - Murakami, Koichi
AU - Hara-Kudo, Yukiko
AU - Imuta, Naoko
AU - Gotoh, Yasuhiro
AU - Ogura, Yoshitoshi
AU - Hayashi, Tetsuya
AU - Okamoto, Yasuhiro
AU - Nishi, Junichiro
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI (Grant Numbers 25460539, 16K08781, and 20K07498 to TO, and 20310116 and 221S0002 to TH), and a Health Labour Sciences Research Grant (H30-Shokuhin-Ippan-001 to YH-K).
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2021 Nakae, Ooka, Murakami, Hara-Kudo, Imuta, Gotoh, Ogura, Hayashi, Okamoto and Nishi.
PY - 2021/11/1
Y1 - 2021/11/1
N2 - Escherichia albertii is a recently recognized human enteropathogen that is closely related to Escherichia coli. As E. albertii sometimes causes outbreaks of gastroenteritis, rapid strain typing systems, such as the O- and H-serotyping systems widely used for E. coli, will be useful for outbreak investigation and surveillance. Although an O-genotyping system has recently been developed, the diversity of E. albertii H-antigens (flagellins) encoded by fliC genes remains to be systematically investigated, and no H-serotyping or genotyping system is currently available. Here, we analyzed the fliC genes of 243 genome-sequenced E. albertii strains and identified 73 sequence types, which were grouped into four clearly distinguishable types designated E. albertii H-genotypes 1–4 (EAHg1–EAHg4). Although there was a clear sign of intraspecies transfer of fliC genes in E. albertii, none of the four E. albertii H-genotypes (EAHgs) were closely related to any of the 53 known E. coli H-antigens, indicating the absence or rare occurrence of interspecies transfer of fliC genes between the two species. Although the analysis of more E. albertii strains will be required to confirm the low level of variation in their fliC genes, this finding suggests that E. albertii may exist in limited natural hosts or environments and/or that the flagella of E. albertii may function in a limited stage(s) in their life cycle. Based on the fliC sequences of the four EAHgs, we developed a multiplex PCR-based H-genotyping system for E. albertii (EAH-genotyping PCR), which will be useful for epidemiological studies of E. albertii infections.
AB - Escherichia albertii is a recently recognized human enteropathogen that is closely related to Escherichia coli. As E. albertii sometimes causes outbreaks of gastroenteritis, rapid strain typing systems, such as the O- and H-serotyping systems widely used for E. coli, will be useful for outbreak investigation and surveillance. Although an O-genotyping system has recently been developed, the diversity of E. albertii H-antigens (flagellins) encoded by fliC genes remains to be systematically investigated, and no H-serotyping or genotyping system is currently available. Here, we analyzed the fliC genes of 243 genome-sequenced E. albertii strains and identified 73 sequence types, which were grouped into four clearly distinguishable types designated E. albertii H-genotypes 1–4 (EAHg1–EAHg4). Although there was a clear sign of intraspecies transfer of fliC genes in E. albertii, none of the four E. albertii H-genotypes (EAHgs) were closely related to any of the 53 known E. coli H-antigens, indicating the absence or rare occurrence of interspecies transfer of fliC genes between the two species. Although the analysis of more E. albertii strains will be required to confirm the low level of variation in their fliC genes, this finding suggests that E. albertii may exist in limited natural hosts or environments and/or that the flagella of E. albertii may function in a limited stage(s) in their life cycle. Based on the fliC sequences of the four EAHgs, we developed a multiplex PCR-based H-genotyping system for E. albertii (EAH-genotyping PCR), which will be useful for epidemiological studies of E. albertii infections.
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U2 - 10.3389/fmicb.2021.737979
DO - 10.3389/fmicb.2021.737979
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85119110529
VL - 12
JO - Frontiers in Microbiology
JF - Frontiers in Microbiology
SN - 1664-302X
M1 - 737979
ER -