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1 UMR BIPAR/AFSSA/INRA/ENVA/UVPM, 94703 Maisons-Alfort, France
2 AFSSA/LERPAZ Unité d'épidémiologie, 94703 Maisons-Alfort, France
3 Department of Population Health and Reproduction, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA
4 Institut fur Medizinische Mikrobiologie, Virologie und Hygiene, Universitat Rostock, Rostock, Germany
Correspondence
Henri-Jean Boulouis
hjboulouis{at}vet-alfort.fr
| ABSTRACT |
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Present address: Ecole Nationale Vétérinaire d'Alfort, 7 avenue du Général de Gaulle, 94704, Maisons-Alfort, Cedex, France.
| INTRODUCTION |
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To date, there have been several attempts to develop molecular typing techniques for B. henselae. The first investigations led to the identification of two so-called genotypes' within the species B. henselae: genotype I (B. henselae Houston-1 strain belongs to this genotype), and genotype II (Marseilles-like isolates) (Bergmans et al., 1996
; Drancourt et al., 1996
; La Scola et al., 2002
). Even when the difference between genotypes I and II is based solely on one nucleotide difference in the 16S rRNA sequence, studies have suggested that B. henselae genotypes may induce different pathological features in HIV-infected patients (Chang et al., 2002
). The two genotypes are not equally distributed in feline and human populations (Bergmans et al., 1996
; Chang et al., 2002
). Other attempts to develop more discriminatory typing techniques have been undertaken. Until recently, PFGE appeared to be the most discriminatory technique when compared with those developed earlier (Matar et al., 1993
; Rodriguez-Barradas et al., 1995
; Koehler et al., 1997
; Sander et al., 1998
; Handley & Regnery, 2000
; Maruyama et al., 2001
; Arvand et al., 2001
; Dillon et al., 2002
).
More recently, two techniques based on the sequencing of selected genomic areas have been developed. The multilocus sequence technique (MLST) (Iredell et al., 2003
) has a discriminatory power equivalent to that of PFGE. The multispacer typing technique (MST) (Li et al., 2006
) appears to be a highly efficient method for genotyping B. henselae (39 profiles for 126 isolates). As these two techniques are based on sequencing, they are easily transferable; nevertheless, the necessity to sequence up to nine DNA regions (sometimes in both senses) for each isolate to be tested makes them costly, and not easily accessible for routine typing, for many potential users.
Variable number tandem repeats (VNTRs) represent good candidates for the development of a discriminatory, more user-friendly and less costly typing technique. VNTRs are microsatellite- or minisatellite-like structures initially described in eukaryotic cells. The combination of different VNTRs can lead to a good level of polymorphism (Vergnaud & Denoeud, 2000
). This principle has been the basis for the development of multilocus VNTR analysis (MLVA). In a growing number of prokaryotes, including those displaying low genetic heterogeneity when using other techniques, VNTR typing has proved to be discriminatory, simple and transferable, with an excellent level of stability for the markers (Lindstedt, 2005
). This type of epidemiological marker has been used for many pathogenic bacteria, such as Bacillus anthracis, Yersinia pestis, Leptospira interrogans and Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Keim et al., 2000
; Le Flèche et al., 2001
; Mazars et al., 2001
; Majed et al., 2005
; Slack et al., 2005
).
Despite the availability of B. henselae-typing techniques, several epidemiological issues have not yet been fully investigated. For example, it is important to link a human infection to a specific infection of a given potential animal carrier. One such study has been initiated by Chang et al. (2002)
, using the PFGE technique; however, a more user-friendly technique could help to investigate this link more easily. Comparison of isolates from different countries would help to establish their biodiversity and to determine whether some geographic markers can be identified, as suggested by the recent results of Li et al. (2006)
. Also, we would look for the presence of dominant isolates or clusters with potential epidemic significance, which has not been described to date (Li et al., 2006
). Furthermore, the role of fleas as selective carriers of B. henselae isolates remains unknown. In order to investigate these issues, new epidemiological markers are needed. The aim of this study was to establish the discriminatory power of 30 VNTR candidates. These potential VNTRs were selected from the sequence genome of the reference strain B. henselae H1, and they were tested on 44 isolates or strains of B. henselae, including B. henselae H1.
| METHODS |
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Primer design, and VNTR candidate amplification, analysis and final selection.
The tandem repeats database described by Le Flèche et al. (2001)
also provides the sequences flanking the VNTR candidate, both 450 bp upstream and 450 bp downstream of the repeat motif. BLASTN analysis of these flanking sequences was used for designing the forward and reverse primers. The VNTR candidates were known as BHVs (B. henselae VNTRs), and each selected VNTR was designated BHV followed by an alphabetic letter. The location of each BHV in the Bartonella genome is described as the locus. An allele corresponds to a given number of repeated units for a given BHV or locus.
Amplification of VNTRs was conducted in a volume of 25 µl containing 1 µl purified DNA or 5 µl cell lysate, 1x Pfx amplification buffer, 0.4 mM of each dNTP,1 mM MgSO4, 0.8 µM of each primer, 1x PCR enhancer solution, and 1 unit Platinum Pfx DNA polymerase (Invitrogen). An initial denaturation step at 94 °C for 5 min was followed by the following amplification programme: DNA was denatured for 30 s at 94 °C, and primers were annealed for 30 s at the optimal temperature (50 °C for BHV-A, BHV-B, BHV-C and BHV-D, and 53 °C for BHV-E), and extended at 72 °C for 1 min. After 40 cycles, there was a final extension programme at 72 °C for 7 min.
PCR products were separated by gel electrophoresis in 12 % agarose gels, and stained with ethidium bromide. Long gels (30 cm), long migration times (up to 27 h), and a combination of different molecular markers (from 100 bp to 1 kb), including
X174 HaeIII fragments (Invitrogen), were used for BHV-A and -B. These procedures allowed us to distinguish between two alleles, which could differ by as little as 22 bp (corresponding to 0.5 repeated unit for these two BHVs) even when these alleles were more than 1000 bp in length. For a given BHV, the expected PCR product length for the B. henselae H1 strain took into account the unit length, the number of units in the B. henselae H1 strain locus, and the length of the flanking sequences separating primer binding sites from BHV regions. The estimated size range for the different alleles was deduced from the allele size range, and from the basic unit length. For incomplete units, the calculated values were rounded up or down to the closest whole number; for instance, 13.5 or 13.8 units were considered to be 14 units, and 5.3 units was considered to be 5 units. In a second step, variant alleles (i.e. containing half-length units) that were initially rounded up (e.g. 14.5 units, which were rounded up to 15) were individualized when they provided additional information.
The final selection of BHVs was based on the following criteria: (i) candidate loci with less than two different alleles were excluded; (ii) when two BHV candidates were isomorphic, one was excluded; and (iii) the band patterns were fully readable.
Data analysis.
For the evaluation of the discriminatory power of the selected BHVs, the Hunter and Gaston discrimination index (DI) was used (Hunter & Gaston, 1988
), as recommended by the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Study Group on Epidemiological Markers (Struelens, 1996
). This index measures the probability that two isolates or strains, randomly chosen among the 44 isolates or strains selected, will have different types. It is defined by:
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Clustering analysis was done using a phenetic approach, since the comparison of isolates and strains was based on small genomic sequences. The distance matrix was constructed by counting the number of different loci between isolates. With this method, the character states are considered to be unordered and, for a given BHV, the same weight is given to a small or a large difference of the number of repeats. Neighbour-joining (NJ) cluster analysis was then performed using PHYLIP (Felsenstein, 1989
), with the isolate from the Philippines used as an outgroup.
| RESULTS |
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Using a first series of six isolates [three genotype I isolates (one French isolate, the Philippino isolate, and B. henselae H1) and three genotype II isolates (two French isolates, and one Danish isolate)], 11 out of 30 BHVs were found to be at least dimorphic and were considered for further testing.
All isolates or strains of B. henselae, with the exception of the American passed strain F1 297172 (Table 1
), were tested with these 11 BHVs. Five BHVs (AE) were finally selected based on the three criteria described above. BHV-D was located inside a gene, whereas the other four interfered with the beginning of coding sequences. The characteristics of the five selected BHVs are described in Table 2
. For all isolates that were tested twice (more than 50 % of our isolates), we obtained results that were 100 % identical. In addition, in order to test the stability of our markers, the American feline strain F1 297172 was submitted to MLVA after 2, 21 and 41 passages, and the marker profiles were found to be the same as before for the five selected BHVs (AE).
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With the five BHVs, 29 different profiles were obtained for the 40 French and Danish isolates of B. henselae tested, corresponding to two different groups: group 1 and group 2 (Fig. 1
). These two groups were distinguished at the level of the first bifurcation of the tree, which was just beyond the outgroup.
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The Berlin isolate could not be distinguished from B. henselae H1 (reference strain) with the five BHV markers used (Fig. 1
), or when using six additional BHVs (data not shown).
Additional markers.
Within group 2 (Fig. 1
), some isolates originating from France and Denmark looked identical when they were compared using the five BHVs, with rounded-up or -down values. However, when using the complementary tool represented by the variant alleles defined for BHV-A and -B, the group of four isolates was resolved into two groups of two isolates. In the same way, the two groups of three isolates were resolved into two groups of two isolates and two single isolates. Eventually, one pair was resolved into two different isolates (FR97 and FR123). Only seven identical pairs remained. Except for one pair (FR963 and DK229), all remaining pairs comprised isolates from the same country (French/French or Danish/Danish). In one of these four pairs the isolates (FR 74 and FR 76; Fig. 1
) were from the same cat.
Comparison of genotypes I and II.
In the phenogram, the smallest group (5 out of 44) was completely composed of strains and isolates belonging to genotype I, i.e. 45 % of the isolates and strains harbouring this genotype. The five other genotype I French isolates did not appear to be randomly scattered, but formed two small subgroups within the second group, which included all the isolates belonging to genotype II. The American type I feline strain F1 (297172) was totally out of the tree.
| DISCUSSION |
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The discriminatory power of this MLVA technique, using only five BHVs, appears to be high in comparison with the results obtained with the majority of the typing techniques proposed for B. henselae. The performance of MLST has been convincingly demonstrated to be comparable with that of PFGE by Iredell et al. (2003)
, using the same isolates for testing both techniques. In their study, Li et al. (2006)
conclude that MST is more discriminatory than MLST. Some findings of our study suggest that MLVA is even more discriminatory than MST, at least when considering French isolates: Li et al. (2006)
tested 28 French isolates, and obtained five different profiles using MST; in our study, 23 French isolates from the same area (Ile de France) were tested using MLVA, and we obtained 18 different profiles. Since Li et al. (2006)
reported more heterogeneity among their Asian isolates than among their European isolates, it would be interesting to check if the apparent superiority of MLVA is confirmed when testing isolates from locations other than France and Denmark.
Furthermore, the present technique is even more discriminatory when using variant alleles for BHV-A and -B as complementary tools. Other authors, such as Farlow et al. (2002)
, Pourcel et al. (2003)
, and Johansson et al. (2004)
, have described the presence of variant alleles for Borrelia, Legionella and Francisella, respectively. These complementary tools have been useful in a few cases, when more accurate discrimination between isolates, especially French versus Danish isolates, was required.
Using an isolate from the Philippines which had MLVA patterns very different from the European isolates as an outgroup, two main groups were detected in the NJ tree. Isolates from France and Denmark grouped together in the majority of the cases; this is not surprising, as they belong to the same continent. A similar trend has already been observed with other bacterial species, e.g. Mycobacterium bovis, when using MLVA (Skuce et al., 2002
) and spoligotyping (Haddad et al., 2001
).
When compared with the European isolates, the isolate from the Philippines, and the American feline strain F1 297172, presented original profiles. This suggests that new groups could emerge from BHV typing of non-European isolates, as observed by Li et al. (2006)
using MST. In contrast, the human isolate from Berlin was identical to B. henselae H1 strain (human ATCC 49882 strain), despite their very different geographic origins, suggesting a possible common origin. Such a similarity between these two human isolates/strains has been described by Arvand et al. (2001)
using the PFGE technique.
There was no clear cut-off between the two B. henselae genotypes in terms of BHV patterns. Similar observations have been made with techniques used by others (Chang et al., 2002
; Dillon et al., 2002
). The absence of a correlation between genotypes I and II, and the distribution of the isolates according to their MLVA profiles, is not surprising. First, discrimination between genotypes I and II is based on a unique difference of one nucleotide in the sequence of the 16S rRNA gene; thus, the phylogenic meaning of the discrimination is questionable. Second, phenograms are based on only a few informative characters, and, therefore, a difference at a single locus can change the positioning of isolates in the phenogram. Third, for a given allele, even if it is stable in a given period, a reduction or an increase in the numbers of repeated units can occur with time. This makes it possible that two isolates harbouring different I/II genotypes can evolve to closer or even identical BHV profiles, and become included in the same group (homoplasy); this could be the case for the genotype I isolates located within the group that almost otherwise consists of genotype II isolates (Fig. 1
). Eventually, some modifications of BHV profiles may be linked to horizontal transfer, the occurrence of which in B. henselae has been suspected by other authors (Dillon et al., 2002
; Iredell et al., 2003
). Nevertheless, 5 of the 12 isolates belonging to genotype I form a clearly individualized group (group 1). Such a distribution needs to be further confirmed using a larger collection of isolates belonging to genotype I.
In conclusion, despite the small size of the genome of B. henselae, 11 BHV candidates revealed some degree of polymorphism. Among them, five BHVs were selected because their combination provided a high level of polymorphism, both at the level of all the 44 B. henselae isolates tested (DI 0.98), and at the level of French or Danish isolates measured separately. Compared with the majority of the other techniques developed for B. henselae typing, MLVA appears to be very discriminatory. However, this needs to be confirmed by comparing the levels of heterogeneity obtained for the same isolates using MLVA and other techniques, especially PFGE, MLST and/or MST.
| ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS |
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Edited by: W. B. van Leeuwen
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Received 11 August 2006;
revised 23 November 2006;
accepted 29 November 2006.
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