Genomic and Phenotypic Insights for Toxigenic Clinical Vibrio cholerae O141

Abstract

Vibrio cholerae remains a major public health threat worldwide, causing millions of cholera cases each year. Although much is known about the evolution and pathogenicity of the O1/O139 serogroups of V. cholerae , information is lacking on the molecular epidemiology of non‒O1/O139 strains isolated from patients who have diarrheal illnesses. We performed whole-genome sequence analysis and in vivo infections to investigate characteristics of V. cholerae O141 isolated from sporadic diarrheal cases in 4 countries. The strains formed a distinct phylogenetic clade distinguishable from other serogroups and a unique multilocus sequence type 42, but interstrain variation suggests that O141 isolates are not clonal. These isolates encode virulence factors including cholera toxin and the toxin-coregulated pilus, as well as a type 3 secretion system. They had widely variable capacities for intestinal colonization in the infant mouse model. We propose that O141 isolates comprise a distinct clade of V. cholerae non‒O1/O139, and their continued surveillance is warranted.

Characterization of a Nonagglutinating Toxigenic Vibrio cholerae Isolate

“…2 ), which is also found in toxigenic USGC strains and pandemic strains of O1 ( 4 , 12 ). Consistent with the previous report of sequence similarity of ctxAB among O141 strains ( 22 ), this phylogeny and nucleotide alignment show that the potential NAG strain ctxAB sequence is closely related to those of other toxigenic V. cholerae strains from the USGC, despite the diversity in times of collection and differences in O-antigen serogroups.…”

“…An important consideration for developing a comprehensive surveillance system for vibriosis is the inclusion of other serogroups that can also carry virulence genes, such as O75 and O141 ( 4 , 20 – 22 ). Antisera for phenotypic testing are not commercially available for non-O1/non-O139 serogroups and public sequence data, and known genetic markers are limited for strains like O75 and O141 ( 18 , 19 , 22 ). However, the increased use of next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies over the last 2 decades has led to detailed characterizations of non-O1/non-O139 strains, including O141 ( 22 ).…”

“…Antisera for phenotypic testing are not commercially available for non-O1/non-O139 serogroups and public sequence data, and known genetic markers are limited for strains like O75 and O141 ( 18 , 19 , 22 ). However, the increased use of next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies over the last 2 decades has led to detailed characterizations of non-O1/non-O139 strains, including O141 ( 22 ). Therefore, data from NGS can be used to develop analytical frameworks for other less well-characterized serogroups and where access to antisera for phenotypic classifications is limited.…”

“…Over the years, we have observed patterns in strains endogenous to the USGC, which include serogroups O1, O75, and O141, that are of public health concern due to shared virulence characteristics with pandemic strains of V. cholerae ( 3 , 20 , 21 , 23 – 25 ). Multiple studies have reported V. cholerae cases from O141 and O75 strains that have caused cholera-like outbreaks in the United States ( 3 , 20 – 22 ) and attributed them to environmental reservoirs where these strains are endemic ( 23 ). The emergence of atypical and nonagglutinating non-O1/non-O139 strains from environmental reservoirs in South Africa has also been described ( 26 ).…”

Distribution and ecology of the generalist lactic acid bacterium Carnobacterium maltaromaticum in different freshwater habitats: Metabolic and antagonistic abilities

“…All raw sequence reads have been deposited at the NCBI under BioProject with accession PRJNA990564. The quality of generated reads was evaluated by FastQC version 0.11.5 (https://guix.gnu.org), and trimmed reads were used for calling single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) by Snippy version 4.6.0 as described by Hounmanou et al (2022). The core genome single-nucleotide variants of the 28 C. maltaromaticum isolates were aligned with five published C. maltaromaticum genomes from other sources using Snippy-core version 4.1.0 for phylogeny inference.…”