Journal article
Culture-independent metagenomics supports discovery of uncultivable bacteria within the genus Chlamydia
Scientific Reports, Vol.7(1), 10661
2017
Abstract
Advances in culture-independent methods have meant that we can more readily detect and diagnose emerging infectious disease threats in humans and animals. Metagenomics is fast becoming a popular tool for detection and characterisation of novel bacterial pathogens in their environment, and is particularly useful for obligate intracellular bacteria such as Chlamydiae that require labour-intensive culturing. We have used this tool to investigate the microbial metagenomes of Chlamydia-positive cloaca and choana samples from snakes. The microbial complexity within these anatomical sites meant that despite previous detection of chlamydial 16S rRNA sequences by single-gene broad-range PCR, only a chlamydial plasmid could be detected in all samples, and a chlamydial chromosome in one sample. Comparative genomic analysis of the latter revealed it represented a novel taxon, Ca. Chlamydia corallus, with genetic differences in regards to purine and pyrimidine metabolism. Utilising statistical methods to relate plasmid phylogeny to the phylogeny of chromosomal sequences showed that the samples also contain additional novel strains of Ca. C. corallus and two putative novel species in the genus Chlamydia. This study highlights the value of metagenomics methods for rapid novel bacterial discovery and the insights it can provide into the biology of uncultivable intracellular bacteria such as Chlamydiae
Details
- Title
- Culture-independent metagenomics supports discovery of uncultivable bacteria within the genus Chlamydia
- Authors
- Alyce Taylor-Brown (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast - Faculty of Science, Health, Education and EngineeringLabolina Spang (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast - Faculty of Science, Health, Education and EngineeringNicole Borel (Author) - University of Zurich, SwitzerlandAdam Polkinghorne (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast - Faculty of Science, Health, Education and Engineering
- Publication details
- Scientific Reports, Vol.7(1), 10661; 9
- Publisher
- Nature Publishing Group
- Date published
- 2017
- DOI
- 10.1038/s41598-017-10757-5
- ISSN
- 2045-2322
- Copyright note
- Copyright © The Author(s) 2017. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Te images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Organisation Unit
- School of Science and Engineering - Legacy; University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland; School of Science, Technology and Engineering
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99450923902621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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