Virulence plasmid pINV as a genetic signature for <i>Shigella flexneri</i> phylogeny.

ABSTRACT: Shigella flexneri is a major health burden in low- and middle-income countries, where it is a leading cause of mortality associated with diarrhoea in children, and shows an increasing incidence among travellers and men having sex with men. Like all Shigella spp., S. flexneri has evolved from commensal Escherichia coli following the acquisition of a large plasmid pINV, which contains genes essential for virulence. Current sequence typing schemes of Shigella are based on combinations of chromosomal genetic loci, since pINV-encoded virulence genes are often lost during growth in the laboratory, making these elements inappropriate for sequence typing. By performing comparative analysis of pINVs from S. flexneri strains isolated from different geographi

SUBMITTER: Pilla G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9455713 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature