Sequence characterisation and novel insights into bovine mastitis-associated Streptococcus uberis in dairy herds

Abstract

Streptococcus uberis is one of the most frequent mastitis-causing pathogens isolated from dairy cows. Further understanding of S. uberis genetics may help elucidate the disease pathogenesis. We compared the genomes of S. uberis isolates cultured from dairy cows located in distinctly different geographic regions of Australia. All isolates had novel multi locus sequence types (MLST) indicating a highly diverse population of S. uberis. Global clonal complexes (GCC) were more conserved. GCC ST86 and GCC ST143 represented 30% of the total isolates (n = 27) and were clustered within different geographic regions. Core genome phylogeny revealed low phylogenetic clustering by region, isolation source, and MLST. Identification of putative sortase (srtA) substrates and generation of a custom putative virulence factor database revealed genes which may explain the affinity of S. uberis for mammary tissue, evasion of antimicrobial efforts and disease pathogenesis. Of 27 isolates, four contained antibiotic resistance genes including an antimicrobial resistance cluster containing mel/mef(A), mrsE, vatD, lnuD, and transposon-mediated lnuC was also identified. These are novel genes for S. uberis, which suggests interspecies lateral gene transfer. The presence of resistance genes across the two geographic regions tested within one country supports the need for a careful, tailored, implementation and monitoring of antimicrobial stewardship.

Molecular Typing and Antimicrobial Susceptibility Profiles of Streptococcus uberis Isolated From Sheep Milk

“…CC86 and CC5 were detected at very low rates of 4% and 0.8%, respectively. Although there are no other data concerning S. uberis of small ruminants, lineages CC143 and CC86 were highly associated with bovine IMI in Portugal [18], India [19], Italy [6] and Australia [16], whereas CC5 is the most prevalent clonal complex among bovine mastitis isolates collected in the UK [20] and Swiss Midlands [7].…”

“…The present study contributes to understand the population structure of S. uberis involved in ovine mastitis in Sardinia, Italy. Several studies are available on S. uberis from dairy cows [8,9,[12][13][14][15][16], while only limited reports are available on the genotyping and antimicrobial resistance of S. uberis from small ruminants [6,17]. In this work, which represents the first study dealing with molecular typing of ovine S. uberis in Italy, the genetic relatedness of isolates was established by using MLST and PFGE.…”

A Review of the Neutrophil Extracellular Traps (NETs) from Cow, Sheep and Goat Models

“…Porphyromonas gingivalis [55] V. cholera [45] Aeromonas hydrophila [56] E. arloingi sporozoites, B. besnoiti, C. parvum, Spermatozoa, H. contortus, N. caninum, D (-) lactic acid, M. bovis, E. ninakohlyakimovae, T. gondii, S. uberis [24,[31][32][33][34][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72] Formation of NETs contributes to the pathogenesis of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases in man. Pathologies associated with NET formation have been reported in systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis [73], vasculitis [74,75], diabetes [76,77], atherosclerosis and cancer [78].…”

A dominant clonal lineage of Streptococcus uberis in cattle in Germany

“…Although several strains have been typed using multilocus sequence typing (MLST), only a few fully sequenced genomes exists to this date. Nevertheless, the number of sequenced draft genomes continues to increase and studies in this field are becoming more and more relevant (Hossain et al 2015 ; Vezina et al 2021 ). Currently, 69 genomes can be found in the NCBI database.…”