Phylogeography of Brucella suis biovar 2 with focus on Slovenian wildlife

Bojan Papić (Author), Darja Kušar (Author), Branko Krt (Author), Matjaž Ocepek (Author), Jana Avberšek (Author)

Abstract

Brucella suis commonly infects swine but occasionally also other animal species and humans. Wild boars are the most important reservoir of B. suis biovar 2, continually infecting susceptible hosts through close contact. Nevertheless, the genetic diversity of B. suis in wildlife remains understudied. Here, we typed 17 Slovenian B. suis biovar 2 isolates obtained in 2017–2019 from wild boars (n = 16) and a hare (n = 1) using whole-genome sequencing (WGS). To assess the global phylogenetic diversity of B. suis, we compared them to 126 publicly available B. suis genomes. All Slovenian isolates fell within the biovar 2 lineage, confirming the previous multiplex PCR typing results. According to MLST-21, the wild boar isolates were of sequence types (STs) ST16 (n = 8) and ST153 (n = 8); the maximum genetic distance between isolates of the same ST was 28 wgMLST alleles. The ST153 isolates were restricted to the Slovenian-Croatian border and clustered together with the Croatian ST153 isolates from swine, indicating cross-border transmission of B. suis ST153 strain. The hare isolate was of ST40 and was genetically distant (≥ 489 alleles) from the wild boar isolates. The genome-wide phylogeny clearly separated different B. suis biovars. The present study is the first report on the population structure of B. suis in wildlife in Slovenia and shows that the Slovenian B. suis population is genetically heterogeneous. At the species level, B. suis biovars are clearly separated in the WGS-based phylogenetic tree and can therefore be reliably predicted using WGS.

Keywords

Brucella suis;biovar 2;wildlife;whole-genome sequencing;

Data

Language:	English
Year of publishing:	2023
Typology:	1.01 - Original Scientific Article
Organization:	UL VF - Veterinary Faculty
UDC:	636.09:616:577
COBISS:	150793731
ISSN:	1873-2542
Views:	142
Downloads:	20
Average score:	0 (0 votes)
Metadata:

Other data

Secondary keywords:	Brucella suis;Whole Genome Sequencing;
Type (COBISS):	Article
Pages:	str. 1-6
Issue:	ǂVol. ǂ282, [article no.] 109751
Chronology:	2023
DOI:	10.1016/j.vetmic.2023.109751
ID:	18788282