Genomic Analyses of >3,100 Nasopharyngeal Pneumococci Revealed Significant Differences Between Pneumococci Recovered in Four Different Geographical Regions.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the structure of a bacterial population is essential in order to understand bacterial evolution. Estimating the core genome (those genes common to all, or nearly all, strains of a species) is a key component of such analyses. The size and composition of the core genome varies by dataset, but we hypothesized that the variation between different collections of the same bacterial species would be minimal. To investigate this, we analyzed the genome sequences of 3,118 pneumococci recovered from healthy individuals in Reykjavik (Iceland), Southampton (United Kingdom), Boston (United States), and Maela (Thailand). The analyses revealed a "supercore" genome (genes shared by all 3,118 pneumococci) of 558 genes, although an additional 354 core genes were shared by pneumococci from Rey

SUBMITTER: van Tonder AJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6398412 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature