Comparative genomic and phylogeographic analysis of Mycobacterium leprae.

Marc Monot , Nadine Honoré , Thierry Garnier , Nora Zidane , Diana Sherafi , Alberto Paniz-Mondolfi (1) , Masanori Matsuoka (2) , G Michael Taylor (3) , Helen D Donoghue (3) , Abi Bouwman (4) , Simon Mays (5) , Claire Watson (6) , Diana Lockwood (6) , Ali Khamesipour (7) , Yahya Dowlati (7) , Shen Jianping (8) , Thomas H Rea (9) , Lucio Vera-Cabrera (10) , Mariane M Stefani (11) , Sayera Banu (12) , Murdo Macdonald (13) , Bishwa Raj Sapkota (13) , John S Spencer (14) , Jérôme Thomas (15) , Keith Harshman (15) , Pushpendra Singh (16) , Philippe Busso (16) , Alexandre Gattiker (17) , Jacques Rougemont (17) , Patrick J Brennan (14) , Stewart T Cole (16)

1 Instituto de Biomedicina [Caracas]
2 Leprosy Research Centre [Japan]
3 Centre for Infectious Diseases and International Health
4 Faculty of Life Sciences [Manchester]
5 Ancient Monuments Laboratory
6 LSHTM - London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
7 Center for Research and Training in Skin Diseases and Leprosy
8 National Center for Leprosy Control [China]
9 Department of Dermatology [Los Angeles, USA]
10 Servicio de Dermatología
11 Tropical Pathology and Public Health Institute [Brazil]
12 ICDDR,B - International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh
13 Leprosy Mission Nepal
14 Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology
15 CIG - Center for Integrative Genomics - Institute of Bioinformatics, Génopode
16 Global Health Institute - Institut d'Infectiologie [Lausanne]
17 Bioinformatics and Biostatistics Core Facility [Lausanne]

Reductive evolution and massive pseudogene formation have shaped the 3.31-Mb genome of Mycobacterium leprae, an unculturable obligate pathogen that causes leprosy in humans. The complete genome sequence of M. leprae strain Br4923 from Brazil was obtained by conventional methods (6x coverage), and Illumina resequencing technology was used to obtain the sequences of strains Thai53 (38x coverage) and NHDP63 (46x coverage) from Thailand and the United States, respectively. Whole-genome comparisons with the previously sequenced TN strain from India revealed that the four strains share 99.995% sequence identity and differ only in 215 polymorphic sites, mainly SNPs, and by 5 pseudogenes. Sixteen interrelated SNP subtypes were defined by genotyping both extant and extinct strains of M. leprae from around the world. The 16 SNP subtypes showed a strong geographical association that reflects the migration patterns of early humans and trade routes, with the Silk Road linking Europe to China having contributed to the spread of leprosy.

Domaines: Biologie moléculaire

Marc Monot, Nadine Honoré, Thierry Garnier, Nora Zidane, Diana Sherafi, et al.. Comparative genomic and phylogeographic analysis of Mycobacterium leprae.: Phylogeography of leprosy (titre du fichier auteur). Nature Genetics, 2009, 41 (12), pp.1282-9. ⟨10.1038/ng.477⟩. ⟨pasteur-01370857⟩