Journal article

Publication year: 2019

Journal: Nature Communications

Volume number: 10

eISSN: 2041-1723

Open access status: Gold

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12072-1

Publisher: Nature Research

Abstract: 
The foodborne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes (Lm) is a highly heterogeneous species and currently comprises of 4 evolutionarily distinct lineages. Here, we characterize isolates from severe ovine listeriosis outbreaks that represent a hybrid sub-lineage of the major lineage II (HSL-II) and serotype 4h. HSL-II isolates are highly virulent and exhibit higher organ colonization capacities than well-characterized hypervirulent strains of Lm in an orogastric mouse infection model. The isolates harbour both the Lm Pathogenicity Island (LIPI)-1 and a truncated LIPI-2 locus, encoding sphingomyelinase (SmcL), a virulence factor required for invasion and bacterial translocation from the gut, and other non-contiguous chromosomal segments from another pathogenic species, L. ivanovii. HSL-II isolates exhibit a unique wall teichoic acid (WTA) structure essential for resistance to antimicrobial peptides, bacterial invasion and virulence. The discovery of isolates harbouring pan-species virulence genes of the genus Listeria warrants global efforts to identify further hypervirulent lineages of Lm.

Harvard Citation style: Yin, Y., Yao, H., Doijad, S., Kong, S., Shen, Y., Cai, X., et al. (2019) A hybrid sub-lineage of Listeria monocytogenes comprising hypervirulent isolates, Nature Communications, 10, Article 4283. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12072-1

APA Citation style: Yin, Y., Yao, H., Doijad, S., Kong, S., Shen, Y., Cai, X., Tan, W., Wang, Y., Feng, Y., Ling, Z., Wang, G., Hu, Y., Lian, K., Sun, X., Liu, Y., Wang, C., Jiao, K., Liu, G., Song, R., ...Jiao, X. (2019). A hybrid sub-lineage of Listeria monocytogenes comprising hypervirulent isolates. Nature Communications. 10, Article 4283. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12072-1