Development of a multilocus sequence typing scheme for the pig pathogen Streptococcus suis: identification of virulent clones and potential capsular serotype exchange.

ABSTRACT: Streptococcus suis is an important pathogen of pigs and occasionally causes serious human disease. However, little is known about the S. suis population structure, the clonal relationships between strains, the potential of particular clones to cause disease, and the relevance of serotype as a marker for epidemiology. Here we describe a multilocus sequence typing (MLST) scheme for S. suis developed in order to begin to address these issues. Seven housekeeping gene fragments from each of 294 S. suis isolates obtained from various S. suis diseases and from asymptomatic carriage representing 28 serotypes and nine distinct countries of origin were sequenced. Between 32 and 46 alleles per locus were identified, giving the ability to distinguish >1.6 x 10(11) sequence types (STs). However only 92

SUBMITTER: King SJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC130843 | biostudies-literature | 2002 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature