Comparative genomics reveals that a fish pathogenic bacterium Edwardsiella tarda has acquired the locus of enterocyte effacement (LEE) through horizontal gene transfer.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Edwardsiella tarda is an enterobacterium which causes edwardsiellosis, a fatal disease of cultured fishes such as red sea bream, eel, and flounder. Preventing the occurrence of E. tarda infection has thus been an important issue in aquaculture. E. tarda has been isolated from other animals and from many environments; however, the relationship between the genotype and evolutionary process of this pathogen is not fully understood. To clarify this relationship, we sequenced and compared the genomes of pathogenic and non-pathogenic E. tarda strains isolated from fish, human, and eel pond using next-generation sequencing technology.

Results

Eight strains of E. tarda were sequenced with high accuracy (>99.9%) with coverages from 50- to 400-fold. The obtained reads were

SUBMITTER: Nakamura Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3890536 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature