Distribution of <i>papA</i> and <i>papG</i> Variants among <i>Escherichia coli</i> Genotypes: Association with Major Extraintestinal Pathogenic Lineages

oleh: Valentina Fernández-Yáñez, Patricio Suazo, Claudia Hormazábal, Valentina Ibaceta, Mauricio Arenas-Salinas, Roberto M. Vidal, Francisco Silva-Ojeda, Carolina Arellano, Ignacio Muñoz, Felipe Del Canto

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2024-06-01

Deskripsi

The pyelonephritis-associated fimbria (P fimbria) is one of the most recognized adhesion determinants of extraintestinal pathogenic <i>Escherichia coli</i> strains (ExPECs). Twelve variants have been described for the gene encoding the P fimbria major structural subunit PapA and three variants for the gene encoding the adhesin subunit PapG. However, their distribution among the ExPEC diversity has not been comprehensively addressed. A complete landscape of that distribution might be valuable for delineating basic studies about the pathogenicity mechanisms of ExPECs and following up on the evolution of ExPEC lineages, particularly those most epidemiologically relevant. Therefore, we performed a massive descriptive study to detect the <i>papA</i> and <i>papG</i> variants along different <i>E. coli</i> genotypes represented by genomic sequences contained in the NCBI Assembly Refseq database. The most common <i>papA</i> variants were F11, F10, F48, F16, F12, and F7-2, which were found in significant association with the most relevant ExPEC genotypes, the phylogroups B2 and D, and the sequence types ST95, ST131, ST127, ST69, ST12, and ST73. On the other hand, the <i>papGII</i> variant was by far the most common followed by <i>papGIII</i>, and both were also found to have a significant association with common ExPEC genotypes. We noticed the presence of genomes, mainly belonging to the sequence type ST12, harboring two or three <i>papA</i> variants and two <i>papG</i> variants. Furthermore, the most common <i>papA</i> and <i>papG</i> variants were also detected in records representing strains isolated from humans and animals such as poultry, bovine, and dogs, supporting previous hypotheses of potential cross-transmission. Finally, we characterized a set of 17 genomes from Chilean uropathogenic <i>E. coli</i> strains and found that ST12 and ST73 were the predominant sequence types. Variants F7-1, F7-2, F8, F9, F11, F13, F14, F16, and F48 were detected for <i>papA</i>, and <i>papGII</i> and <i>papGIII</i> variants were detected for <i>papG</i>. Significant associations with the sequence types observed in the analysis of genomes contained in the NCBI Assembly Refseq database were also found in this collection in 16 of 19 cases for <i>papA</i> variants and 7 of 9 cases for the <i>papG</i> variants. This comprehensive characterization might support future basic studies about P fimbria-mediated ExPEC adherence and future typing or epidemiological studies to monitor the evolution of ExPECs producing P fimbria.