Genetic Determinants and Polymorphisms Specific for Human-Adapted Serovars of Salmonella enterica That Cause Enteric Fever

Abstract

Salmonella enterica serovars Typhi, Paratyphi A, and Sendai are human-adapted pathogens that cause typhoid (enteric) fever. The acute prevalence in some global regions and the disease severity of typhoidal Salmonella have necessitated the development of rapid and specific detection tests. Most of the methodologies currently used to detect serovar Typhi do not identify serovars Paratyphi A or Sendai. To assist in this aim, comparative sequence analyses were performed at the loci of core bacterial genetic determinants and Salmonella pathogenicity island 2 genes encoded by clinically significant S. enterica serovars. Genetic polymorphisms specific for serovar Typhi (at trpS), as well as polymorphisms unique to human-adapted typhoidal serovars (at sseC and sseF), were observed. Furthermore, entire coding sequences unique to human-adapted typhoidal Salmonella strains (i.e., serovar-specific genetic loci rather than polymorphisms) were observed in publicly available comparative genomic DNA microarray data sets. These polymorphisms and loci were developed into real-time PCR, standard PCR, and liquid microsphere suspension array-based molecular protocols and tested for with a panel of clinical and reference subspecies I S. enterica strains. A proportion of the nontyphoidal Salmonella strains hybridized with the allele-specific oligonucleotide probes for sseC and sseF; but the trpS allele was unique to serovar Typhi (with a singular serovar Paratyphi B strain as an exception), and the coding sequences STY4220 and STY4221 were unique among serovars Typhi, Paratyphi A, and Sendai. These determinants provided phylogenetic data on the genetic relatedness of serovars Typhi, Paratyphi A, and Sendai; and the protocols developed might allow the rapid identification of these Salmonella serovars that cause enteric fever.