Homologous recombination drives both sequence diversity and gene content variation in Neisseria meningitidis.

ABSTRACT: The study of genetic and phenotypic variation is fundamental for understanding the dynamics of bacterial genome evolution and untangling the evolution and epidemiology of bacterial pathogens. Neisseria meningitidis (Nm) is among the most intriguing bacterial pathogens in genomic studies due to its dynamic population structure and complex forms of pathogenicity. Extensive genomic variation within identical clonal complexes (CCs) in Nm has been recently reported and suggested to be the result of homologous recombination, but the extent to which recombination contributes to genomic variation within identical CCs has remained unclear. In this study, we sequenced two Nm strains of identical serogroup (C) and multi-locus sequence type (ST60), and conducted a systematic analysis with an additiona

SUBMITTER: Kong Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3787668 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature