Continuing evolution of Burkholderia mallei through genome reduction and large-scale rearrangements

Liliana Losada, Catherine M. Ronningf, David Deshazer, Donald Woods, Natalie Fedorova, H. Stanley Kim, Svetlana A. Shabalina, Talima R. Pearson, Lauren Brinkac, Patrick Tan, Tannistha Nandi, Jonathan Crabtree, Jonathan Badger, Steve Beckstrom-Sternberg, Muhammad Saqib, Steven E. Schutzer, Paul Keim, William C. Nierman

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

86 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Burkholderia mallei (Bm), the causative agent of the predominately equine disease glanders, is a genetically uniform species that is very closely related to the much more diverse species Burkholderia pseudomallei (Bp), an opportunistic human pathogen and the primary cause of melioidosis. To gain insight into the relative lack of genetic diversity within Bm, we performed whole-genome comparative analysis of seven Bm strains and contrasted these with eight Bp strains. The Bm core genome (shared by all seven strains) is smaller in size than that of Bp, but the inverse is true for the variable gene sets that are distributed across strains. Interestingly, the biological roles of the Bm variable gene sets are much more homogeneous than those of Bp. The Bm variable genes are found mostly in contiguous regions flanked by insertion sequence (IS) elements, which appear to mediate excision and subsequent elimination of groups of genes that are under reduced selection in the mammalian host. The analysis suggests that the Bm genome continues to evolve through random IS-mediated recombination events, and differences in gene content may contribute to differences in virulence observed among Bm strains. The results are consistent with the view that Bm recently evolved from a single strain of Bp upon introduction into an animal host followed by expansion of IS elements, prophage elimination, and genome rearrangements and reduction mediated by homologous recombination across IS elements.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)102-116
Number of pages15
JournalGenome Biology and Evolution
Volume2
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2010

Keywords

  • Bacterial evolution
  • Bacterial virulence
  • Comparative genomics
  • Genome erosion

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Medicine

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