Progressive genome‐wide introgression in agricultural Campylobacter coli. Issue 4 (20th December 2012)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Sheppard, Samuel K.; Didelot, Xavier; Jolley, Keith A.; Darling, Aaron E.; Pascoe, Ben; Meric, Guillaume; Kelly, David J.; Cody, Alison; Colles, Frances M.; Strachan, Norval J. C.; Ogden, Iain D.; Forbes, Ken; French, Nigel P.; Carter, Philip; Miller, William G.; McCarthy, Noel D.; Owen, Robert; Litrup, Eva; Egholm, Michael; Affourtit, Jason P.; Bentley, Stephen D.; Parkhill, Julian; Maiden, Martin C. J.; Falush, Daniel
• Is Part Of: Molecular ecology. Volume 22:Issue 4(2013)
• Page Start: 1051
• Page End: 1064
• Publication Date: 2012-12-20
• Subjects: Molecular ecology -- Periodicals; Molecular population biology -- Periodicals; 576
• DOI: 10.1111/mec.12162
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0962-1083

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main" id="mec12162-abs-0001"> <title>Abstract</title> <p>Hybridization between distantly related organisms can facilitate rapid adaptation to novel environments, but is potentially constrained by epistatic fitness interactions among cell components. The zoonotic pathogens <italic>Campylobacter coli</italic> and <italic>C. jejuni</italic> differ from each other by around 15% at the nucleotide level, corresponding to an average of nearly 40 amino acids per protein‐coding gene. Using whole genome sequencing, we show that a single <italic>C. coli</italic> lineage, which has successfully colonized an agricultural niche, has been progressively accumulating <italic>C. jejuni </italic>DNA. Members of this lineage belong to two groups, the ST‐828 and ST‐1150 clonal complexes. The ST‐1150 complex is less frequently isolated and has undergone a substantially greater amount of introgression leading to replacement of up to 23% of the <italic>C. coli</italic> core genome as well as import of novel DNA. By contrast, the more commonly isolated ST‐828 complex bacteria have 10–11% introgressed DNA, and <italic>C. jejuni</italic> and nonagricultural <italic>C. coli</italic> lineages each have <2%. Thus, the <italic>C. coli</italic> that colonize agriculture, and consequently cause most human disease, have hybrid origin, but this cross‐species exchange has so far not had a substantial impact on the gene pools of either <italic>C. jejuni</italic> or nonagricultural <italic>C. coli</italic>. These findings also indicate remarkable interchangeability of basic cellular machinery after a prolonged period of independent evolution.</p> </abstract>