Microbiology
HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced]


     

Microbiology 155 (2009), 3176-3186; DOI  10.1099/mic.0.031534-0IMMEDIATE OPEN ACCESS ARTICLE
This Article
Free via Open Access: OA
Right arrow OA Free Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Supplementary tables
Right arrowOA All Versions of this Article:
mic.0.031534-0v1
155/10/3176    most recent
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via CrossRef
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Didelot, X.
Right arrow Articles by Falush, D.
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Didelot, X.
Right arrow Articles by Falush, D.
Agricola
Right arrow Articles by Didelot, X.
Right arrow Articles by Falush, D.
Microbiology 155 (2009), 3176-3186; DOI  10.1099/mic.0.031534-0
© 2009 Society for General Microbiology

Genealogical typing of Neisseria meningitidis

Xavier Didelot1, Rachel Urwin2, Martin C. J. Maiden3 and Daniel Falush4

1 Department of Statistics, University of Warwick, UK
2 Department of Biology, Pennsylvania State University, USA
3 Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, UK
4 Environmental Research Institute, University College Cork, Ireland

Despite the increasing popularity of multilocus sequence typing (MLST), the most appropriate method for characterizing bacterial variation and facilitating epidemiological investigations remains a matter of debate. Here, we propose that different typing schemes should be compared on the basis of their power to infer clonal relationships and investigate the utility of sequence data for genealogical reconstruction by exploiting new statistical tools and data from 20 housekeeping loci for 93 isolates of the bacterial pathogen Neisseria meningitidis. Our analysis demonstrated that all but one of the hyperinvasive isolates established by multilocus enzyme electrophoresis and MLST were grouped into one of six genealogical lineages, each of which contained substantial variation. Due to the confounding effect of recombination, evolutionary relationships among these lineages remained unclear, even using 20 loci. Analyses of the seven loci in the standard MLST scheme using the same methods reproduced this classification, but were unable to support finer inferences concerning the relationships between the members within each complex.

Correspondence
Martin C. J. Maiden
martin.maiden{at}zoo.ox.ac.uk

Abbreviations: MLST, multilocus sequence typing; MLEE, multilocus enzyme electrophoresis; ST, sequence type

Two supplementary tables are available with the online version of this paper.






HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
INT J SYST EVOL MICROBIOL MICROBIOLOGY J GEN VIROL
J MED MICROBIOL ALL SGM JOURNALS
Copyright © 2009 Society for General Microbiology.