A retrospective investigation was performed to evaluate whole-genome sequencing as a benchmark for comparing molecular subtyping methods for Salmonella enterica serotype Enteritidis and survey the population structure of commonly encountered S. enterica serotype Enteritidis outbreak isolates in the United States. A total of 52 S. enterica serotype Enteritidis isolates representing 16 major outbreaks and three sporadic cases collected between 2001 and 2012 were sequenced and subjected to subtyping by four different methods: (i) whole-genome single-nucleotide-polymorphism typing (WGST), (ii) multiple-locus variablenumber tandem-repeat (VNTR) analysis (MLVA), (iii) clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats combined with multi-virulence-locus sequence typing (CRISPR-MVLST), and (iv) pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). WGST resolved all outbreak clusters and provided useful robust phylogenetic inference results with high epidemiological correlation. While both MLVA and CRISPR-MVLST yielded higher discriminatory power than PFGE, MLVA outperformed the other methods in delineating outbreak clusters whereas CRISPR-MVLST showed the potential to trace major lineages and ecological origins of S. enterica serotype Enteritidis. Our results suggested that whole-genome sequencing makes a viable platform for the evaluation and benchmarking of molecular subtyping methods.
Salmonella enterica is currently the most common bacterial foodborne pathogen in the United States, causing over 1 million cases of illnesses annually, including approximately 20,000 hospitalizations and 400 deaths (1). Serotyping is commonly used to subtype strains below the species level for epidemiologic purposes. Salmonella enterica serotype Enteritidis was the serotype most commonly linked to foodborne outbreaks between 1998 and 2008 in the United States, with shell eggs being the major vehicle for foodborne transmission (2). In recent years, S. enterica serotype Enteritidis was also found to cause multistate outbreaks associated with other foods such as ground beef (2012), Turkish pine nuts (2011), and alfalfa and spicy sprouts (2011), in addition to shelled eggs (2010) (3).During outbreak investigations, it is critical to employ subtyping methods capable of distinguishing outbreak isolates from epidemiologically distinct but genetically related bacterial strains. Most S. enterica serotype Enteritidis isolates have been shown to be genetically homogeneous, making it difficult for conventional subtyping methods such as pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), the current gold standard for strain-level Salmonella subtyping, to discriminate between strains (4, 5). Among the S. enterica serotype Enteritidis isolates reported to PulseNet (6), approximately 45% display a single PFGE pattern using XbaI (JEGX01.0004), rendering PFGE ineffective in some foodborne outbreak investigations. One strategy to improve subtype resolution is to target hypervariable regions (i.e., regions of the bacterial chromosome with less genetic stability) in the ba...