Abstract
Shigellosis is the major cause of dysentery globally. It is mainly attributed to two Shigella species, Shigella sonnei and Shigella flexneri, which leads to approximately 165 million infections and 1.1 million deaths each year. Rapid increase and widening of spectrum in antibiotics resistance make Shigella hard to be adequately controlled through existing prevention and treatment measures. It has also been observed that enhanced virulence and advent of antibiotic resistance (AR) could arise almost simultaneously. However, genetic linkages between the two factors are missing or largely ignored, which hinders experimental verification of the relationship. In this study, we sequenced 15 clinically isolated S. flexneri strains. Genome assembly, annotation and comparison were performed through routine pipelines. Differential resistant profiles of all 15 S. flexneri strains to nine antibiotics were experimentally verified. Virulence factors (VFs) belonging to 4 categories and 31 functional groups from the Virulence Factor Database (VFDB) were used to screen all Shigella translated CDSs. Distribution patterns of virulence factors were analysed by correlating with the profiles of bacterial antibiotics resistance. In addition, multi-resistant S. flexneri strains were compared with antibiotic-sensitive strains by focusing on the abundance or scarcity of specific groups of VFs. By doing these, a clear view of the relationships between virulence factors and antibiotics resistance in Shigella could be achieved, which not only provides a set of genetic evidence to support the interactions between VFs and AR but could also be used as a guidance for further verification of the relationships through manipulating specific groups of virulence factors.
Highlights
Shigellosis is an acute gastroenteritis infection that leads to approximately 165 million infections and 1.1 million deaths per annum [1]
Conclusions newly sequenced S. flexneri genomes isolated from clinical samples were assembled, annotated and compared by following several standardized genome analysis pipelines [16,19,20]
We identified strain-specific differences in the gain and loss of putative virulence factors in this preliminary study
Summary
Shigellosis is an acute gastroenteritis infection that leads to approximately 165 million infections and 1.1 million deaths per annum [1]. Shigellosis is caused by facultatively anaerobic, non-motile Gramnegative, rod-shaped bacteria belonging to the genus Shigella. There are four groups of Shigella in the genus, which includes Shigella dysenteriae, S. boydii, S. flexneri and S. sonnei. Epidemiological studies showed that S. dysenteriae was a dominant cause of large epidemics in the past and is rarely found while S. boydii is infrequently isolated [4]. S. flexneri and S. sonnei are the major causes for Shigellosis. The two Shigella strains show distinct geographic distribution patterns, which relies on the socioeconomic conditions of the area. With the improvement of socioeconomic conditions, transition of dominant strains from S. flexneri to S. sonnei was observed [5]
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