"Gene accordions" cause genotypic and phenotypic heterogeneity in clonal populations of Staphylococcus aureus
Date
14/07/2020Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Gene tandem amplifications are thought to drive bacterial evolution, but they are transient in the absence of selection, making their investigation challenging. Here, we analyze genomic sequences of Staphylococcus aureus USA300 isolates from the same geographical area to identify variations in gene copy number, which we confirm by long-read sequencing. We find several hotspots of variation, including the csa1 cluster encoding lipoproteins known to be immunogenic. We also show that the csa1 locus expands and contracts during bacterial growth in vitro and during systemic infection of mice, and recombination creates rapid heterogeneity in initially clonal cultures. Furthermore, csa1 copy number variants differ in their immunostimulatory capacity, revealing a mechanism by which gene copy number variation can modulate the host immune response.
Citation
Belikova , D , Jochim , A , Power , J , Holden , M T G & Heilbronner , S 2020 , ' "Gene accordions" cause genotypic and phenotypic heterogeneity in clonal populations of Staphylococcus aureus ' , Nature Communications , vol. 11 , 3526 . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-17277-3
Publication
Nature Communications
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2041-1723Type
Journal article
Description
Funding: Research Executive Agency to SH (https://erc.europa.eu/); European Union’s Horizon 2020 research andinnovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No“GA655978”; University of Tübingen (EKUT), Ministry for Science and Art Baden-Württemberg via the RiSC, infrastructural funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), Cluster of Excellence EXC 2124 Controlling Microbes to Fight Infections (SH); Chief Scientists Office (Reference: SIRN10) (MTGH).Collections
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