Abstract
Mycobacterium abscessus complex (MABC) is a taxonomic group of rapidly growing, nontuberculous mycobacteria that are found as etiologic agents of various types of infections. They are considered as emerging human pathogens. MABC consists of 3 subspecies—M. abscessus subsp. bolletti, M. abscessus subsp. massiliense and M. abscessus subsp. abscessus. Here we present a novel method for subspecies differentiation of M. abscessus named Subspecies-Specific Sequence Detection (SSSD). This method is based on the presence of signature sequences present within the genomes of each subspecies of MABC. We tested this method against a virtual database of 1505 genome sequences of MABC. Further, we detected signature sequences of MABC in 45 microbiological samples through DNA hybridization. SSSD showed high levels of sensitivity and specificity for differentiation of subspecies of MABC, comparable to those obtained by rpoB sequence typing.
Highlights
Mycobacterium abscessus complex (MABC) is a taxonomic group of rapidly growing, nontuberculous mycobacteria that are found as etiologic agents of various types of infections
A total of 1505 genomic sequences of M. abscessus included in our virtual database, were differentiated by MLST typing coupled with genome average nucleotide identity estimation (gANI) differentiation and Subspecies-Specific Sequence Detection (SSSD), rpoB sequence typing and erm(41) sequence typing
The population of strains included within the virtual database reflects the population of infecting strains, with the highest prevalence of strains of M. abscessus subsp. abscessus, followed by M. abscessus subsp. massiliense and M. abscessus subsp. bolletii
Summary
Mycobacterium abscessus complex (MABC) is a taxonomic group of rapidly growing, nontuberculous mycobacteria that are found as etiologic agents of various types of infections. They are considered as emerging human pathogens. Mycobacterium abscessus complex (MABC) is a taxonomic group of rapidly growing, nontuberculous mycobacteria They are emergent human pathogens implicated in a variety of clinical manifestations. Several sequence-based methods allow the identification of the three MABC subspecies These methods use sequencing of several housekeeping genes, including hsp[65], rpoB, secA, either individually[19,20,21,22], or in a combined manner[23]. The detection of deletion is used to differentiate M. abscessus subsp. massiliense from M. abscessus subsp. bolletii and M. abscessus subsp. abscessus by sequencing of the erm(41) gene, as it serves for clarithromycin resistance prediction
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