Oral Presentation BACPATH 2019

Genetic diversity and distribution of filamentous prophage in Neisseria (#32)

Barakat Alsuwayyid 1 2 3 , Leah Rankine-Wilson 1 3 , Julie Pearson 4 , David J Speers 5 6 , Michael J Wise 3 7 , Geoffrey W Coombs 8 9 , Charlene M Kahler 1 3
  1. School of Biomedical Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia
  2. Ministry of Education, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
  3. The Marshall Centre for Infectious Diseases Research and Training, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia
  4. Department of Microbiology, Pathwest Laboratory Medicine WA, Murdoch, WA, Australia
  5. School of Medicine and Pharmacology, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia
  6. Department of Microbiology, Pathwest Laboratory Medicine WA, Nedlands, WA, Australia
  7. Computer Science and Software Engineering, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia
  8. Antimicrobial Resistance and Infectious Diseases Research Laboratory, Murdoch University, Murdoch, WA, Australia
  9. School of Veterinary and Life Sciences, Murdoch University, Murdoch, WA, Australia

A filamentous bacteriophage termed the Meningococcal Disease Associated (MDA) phage is associated with Neisseria meningitidis (NM) clades which cause invasive meningococcal disease. MDA φ improves mucosal colonization of the nasopharynx by meningococci thus increasing the probability of bloodstream invasion associated with meningococcal carriage. We recently recovered a Neisseria gonorrhoeae (NG) isolate (ExNg63) from a rare case of gonococcal meningitis. Whole genome sequencing revealed the isolate possessed a region with 90% similarity to MDA φ found in NM. This is the first indication that MDA-like prophages may not be restricted to NM. To understand the genetic diversity and distribution of MDA-like prophages, we examined the distribution, prevalence and genetic diversity of filamentous phages in Neisseria. Closed genomes of 44 NM, 28 NG and 19 commensal Neisseria species were collected from the NCBI database and BIGSdb and were examined for presence of filamentous prophages. Maximum likelihood phylogenetic trees were constructed using MEGA7 while heirBAPS was used to define genetic population groups. BEAST software was used to construct timed phylogeny of the MDA genomes. One hundred and sixty filamentous prophages were detected in the dataset and population structure analysis using heirBAPS revealed the putative gonococcal MDA-like prophages and a putative MDA-like prophage in Neisseria lactamica (NL) formed a structure group with meningococcal MDA φ. However, only 7.5% of gonococcal isolates available at BIGSdb possessed a complete or partial MDA-like sequence compared to 46% of meningococcal isolates suggesting acquisition of MDA-like prophages is more restricted in NG.   BEAST time measured phylogeny of the MDA genomes indicated the most likely source of MDA in NG was from NM serogroup B that could be acquired through natural transformation. These data suggest that prophages similar to the meningococcal MDA φ are present in NG and NL and more work is required to determine whether MDA-like prophages are active and can act as accessory colonization factors in these species.