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Microbiology 150 (2004), 727-734; DOI  10.1099/mic.0.26648-0
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Microbiology 150 (2004), 727-734; DOI  10.1099/mic.0.26648-0
© 2004 Society for General Microbiology

Groupings of highly similar major surface protein (p44)-encoding paralogues: a potential index of genetic diversity amongst isolates of Anaplasma phagocytophilum

A. N. J. Casey1, R. J. Birtles2, A. D. Radford3, K. J. Bown1, N. P. French3, Z. Woldehiwet2 and N. H. Ogden1,{dagger}

1 Department of Veterinary Preclinical Science, University of Liverpool, Brownlow Hill and Crown Street, Liverpool L69 7ZJ, UK
2 Department of Veterinary Pathology, University of Liverpool, Leahurst, Neston, South Wirral CH64 7TE, UK
3 Department of Veterinary Clinical Science, University of Liverpool, Leahurst, Neston, South Wirral CH64 7TE, UK

Correspondence
N. H. Ogden
ogdenn{at}courrier.umontreal.ca

Anaplasma phagocytophilum is a tick-borne bacterium that is zoonotic in the USA and southern Europe, but although the bacterium is endemic in the UK, no cases of clinical human disease have yet been detected in that country. Potential genomic differences amongst UK and USA isolates were investigated by comparing partial 16S rRNA gene and p44 paralogue sequences amplified by PCR from 10 UK ruminant or tick isolates, with published sequences from USA isolates. No significant clustering among the isolates was resolved by phylogenetic analysis of alignments containing 16S rRNA gene sequences. The structure of predicted proteins encoded by p44 paralogues, amplified from 81 clones obtained from the UK isolates, was similar to that described previously for paralogues from USA isolates. Paralogue sequences did not obviously cluster by country, host species or isolate, but most paralogues were 30–70 % similar, making meaningful alignments difficult. Some p44 paralogues from different isolates formed clusters of sequences that were more than 90 % similar to one another (‘similarity groups’). The paralogues in each cluster were particularly similar in gene regions most likely to code for ligands. In the sample studied, 95 % of the similarity groups comprised paralogues from either USA or UK isolates only and occurred with greater frequency amongst paralogues from USA rather than UK isolates. These findings raise the hypothesis that sequences of paralogues in similarity groups may provide an index of adaptation of different ‘strains' of A. phagocytophilum to specific reservoir hosts in different geographical locations, and any associations with infectivity for different species including humans.

Abbreviations: HGE, human granulocytic ehrlichiosis

The GenBank accession numbers for the sequences determined in this work are given in the text.

{dagger}Present address: Groupe de Récherche en Épidémiologie et Santé Publique, Département de Pathologie et Microbiologie, Faculté de Médecine Vétérinaire, Université de Montréal, CP 5000, Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec, Canada J2S 7C6.




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