Whole Genome Sequences of Three Treponema pallidum ssp. pertenue Strains: Yaws and Syphilis Treponemes Differ in Less than 0.2% of the Genome Sequence

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Authors

ČEJKOVÁ Darina ZOBANÍKOVÁ Marie CHEN Lei POSPÍŠILOVÁ Petra STROUHAL Michal QIN Xiang MIKALOVÁ Lenka NORRIS Stephen J. MUZNY Donna M. GIBBS Richard A. FULTON Lucinda L. SODERGREN Erica WEINSTOCK George M. ŠMAJS David

Year of publication 2012
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Medicine

Citation
Web Art.No. e1471
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001471
Field Microbiology, virology
Keywords Treponema pallidum; Syphilis; Genome; Yaws
Description Spirochete Treponema pallidum ssp. pertenue (TPE) is the causative agent of yaws while strains of Treponema pallidum ssp. pallidum (TPA) cause syphilis. Both yaws and syphilis are distinguished on the basis of epidemiological characteristics and clinical symptoms. Neither treponeme can reproduce outside the host organism, which precludes the use of standard molecular biology techniques used to study cultivable pathogens. In this study, we determined high quality whole genome sequences of TPE strains and compared them to known genetic information for T. pallidum ssp. pallidum strains. The genome structure was identical in all three TPE strains and also between TPA and TPE strains. The TPE genome length ranged between 1,139,330 bp and 1,139,744 bp. The overall sequence identity between TPA and TPE genomes was 99.8%, indicating that the two pathogens are extremely closely related. A set of 34 TPE genes (3.5%) encoded proteins containing six or more amino acid replacements or other major sequence changes. These genes more often belonged to the group of genes with predicted virulence and unknown functions suggesting their involvement in infection differences between yaws and syphilis.
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