"Northwestern Medicine investigators have identified issues with most genomic sequence data for the Neisseria gonorrhoeae bacterium, findings that could complicate future epidemiological and pathogenesis studies, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases. Hank Seifert, PhD, the John Edward Porter Professor of Biomedical Research, was the senior author of the study."
"The N. gonorrhoeae pilE gene encodes the PilE protein, which is a subunit of the Type IV pilus - a hairlike structure found on the bacteria's surface - which helps the bacteria infect the host cell and spread. "Clinical isolates are almost always piliated upon isolation but become nonpiliated during in vitro growth," Seifert said."
"The pilE gene also undergoes high-frequency diversification through gene conversion. Pilin antigenic variation - a mechanism used by bacteria to evade the immune system by changing their Type IV proteins - can result in piliated, underpiliated, or nonpiliated cells, which affects how well the bacteria can evade the immune system. "This diversity generation system can change the protein that makes up this fiber on the cell surface or can change its level of expression to lower or to none at all, and we think that's part of this complex program. What we also know is that in the laboratory, when you lose expression of the pilus, the bacteria grow faster," said Seifert, who is also a professor of Microbiology-Immunology."
More than 15,000 N. gonorrhoeae genomic sequences from an open-access whole-genome database were analyzed to characterize pilE and pilS gene diversity. The pilE gene encodes the PilE protein, a subunit of the Type IV pilus that facilitates host cell infection and bacterial spread. The pilE locus undergoes high-frequency diversification via gene conversion, producing pilin antigenic variation that yields piliated, underpiliated, or nonpiliated cells and alters immune evasion. Clinical isolates are typically piliated but often lose pili during in vitro growth, which correlates with increased bacterial growth. Issues in most genomic sequence data could complicate future epidemiological and pathogenesis work. An in-silico PCR assay and other bioinformatic approaches were applied to assess sequence quality.
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