Comparative genomic hybridization identifies virulence differences in Streptococcus suis

Han Zheng; Ruiting Lan; Xiao Zheng; Zhigang Cui; Zhijie Liu; Xuemei Bai; Shaobo Ji; Marcelo Gottschalk; Jianguo Xu

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0087866

Comparative genomic hybridization identifies virulence differences in Streptococcus suis

PLoS One. 2014 Feb 4;9(2):e87866. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0087866. eCollection 2014.

Authors

Han Zheng¹, Ruiting Lan², Xiao Zheng¹, Zhigang Cui¹, Zhijie Liu¹, Xuemei Bai¹, Shaobo Ji¹, Marcelo Gottschalk³, Jianguo Xu¹

Affiliations

¹ Collaborative Innovation Center for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Changping, Beijing, China.
² School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
³ Groupe de Recherche sur les Maladies Infectieuses du Porc, Faculté de médecine vétérinaire, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada.

Abstract

Streptococcus suis is an important zoonotic pathogen. However, identification of virulent S. suis strains is complicated because of the high diversity of the species. Here we evaluated the genetic difference among S. suis strains using comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) and virulence variation in vivo and in vitro. We showed that different clades differed in their ability to activate TLR2/6 in vitro and their capacity to induce cytokine production in vivo as well as their resistance to phagocytosis and survival in vivo. Our data showed the S. suis strains tested can be classified into three groups having differing levels of virulence: epidemic and highly virulent strains were clustered into clade Ia (epidemic and highly virulent group, E/HV group), virulent strains were clustered into clade Ib (virulent group, V group), and intermediately or weakly virulent strains were clustered into other clades (intermediately or weakly virulent group, I/WV group). Our study provided further insight into the genomic and virulence variation of S. suis.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Bacteremia / microbiology
Bacterial Load
Chemokine CCL2 / biosynthesis
Comparative Genomic Hybridization*
Female
Genomics
Genotype
Humans
Mice
Phylogeny
Signal Transduction
Streptococcal Infections / metabolism
Streptococcal Infections / microbiology
Streptococcus suis / classification
Streptococcus suis / genetics*
Streptococcus suis / pathogenicity*
Swine
Swine Diseases / microbiology
Toll-Like Receptor 2 / metabolism
Toll-Like Receptor 6 / metabolism
Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha / biosynthesis
Virulence

Substances

Chemokine CCL2
Toll-Like Receptor 2
Toll-Like Receptor 6
Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha

Grants and funding

This work was supported by a grant (50153-3) from the State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control (to H.Z) and grants (2011ZX10004-001, 2013ZX10004221, 2013ZX10004216-001-002, 81261120559) from the Ministry of Science and Technology, PR China. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.