Molecular characterization of Treponema pallidum subsp. pallidum in Switzerland and France with a new multilocus sequence typing scheme

• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0200773
• Publication Date: 2018-07-30T17:28:43Z
• Authors: Linda Grillová; Tanika Bawa; Lenka Mikalová; Angèle Gayet-Ageron; Kay Nieselt; Michal Strouhal; Patrice Sednaoui; Tristan Ferry; Matthias Cavassini; Stephan Lautensch...; Fabrizio Dutly; Marta Pla-Díaz; Michael Krützen; Fernando González...; Homayoun C. Bagheri; David Šmajs; Natasha Arora; Philipp P. Bosshard
• Keywords: Multilocus sequence typing

Syphilis is an important public health problem and increasing incidence has been noted in recent years. Characterization of strain diversity through molecular data plays a critical role the epidemiological understanding this re-emergence. We here propose new high-resolution multilocus sequence typing (MLST) scheme for Treponema pallidum subsp. (TPA). analyzed 30 complete draft TPA genomes obtained directly from clinical samples or rabbit propagated strains to identify suitable loci tested on 120 collected Switzerland France. Our analyses yielded three with high discriminatory power: TP0136, TP0548, TP0705. Together analysis 23S rRNA gene mutations macrolide resistance, we these as MLST TPA. Among samples, 23 allelic profiles well percentage (80% samples) resistance were revealed. The higher power compared previous schemes, enabling distinction other treponemal bacteria, between two main clades (Nichols SS14), differentiation within clades.