Open AccessPopulation genomics provides insights into the evolution and adaptation to humans of the waterborne pathogen Mycobacterium kansasii
Author(s) -
Tāo Luò,
Peng Xu,
Yangyi Zhang,
Jessica L. Porter,
Marwan Ghanem,
Qingyun Liu,
Yuan Jiang,
Jing Li,
Qi Miao,
Bijie Hu,
Benjamin P. Howden,
Janet Fyfe,
Maria Globan,
Wencong He,
Peimin He,
Yi-Ting Wang,
Houming Liu,
Howard Takiff,
Yanlin Zhao,
Xinchun Chen,
Qichao Pan,
Marcel A. Behr,
Timothy P. Stinear,
Qian Gao
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
nature communications
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.559
H-Index - 365
ISSN - 2041-1723
DOI - 10.1038/s41467-021-22760-6
Subject(s) - mycobacterium kansasii , biology , adaptation (eye) , mycobacterium , population , genomics , pathogen , functional genomics , comparative genomics , microbiology and biotechnology , genetics , gene , medicine , genome , bacteria , environmental health , neuroscience
Mycobacterium kansasii can cause serious pulmonary disease. It belongs to a group of closely-related species of non-tuberculous mycobacteria known as the M. kansasii complex (MKC). Here, we report a population genomics analysis of 358 MKC isolates from worldwide water and clinical sources. We find that recombination, likely mediated by distributive conjugative transfer, has contributed to speciation and on-going diversification of the MKC. Our analyses support municipal water as a main source of MKC infections. Furthermore, nearly 80% of the MKC infections are due to closely-related M. kansasii strains, forming a main cluster that apparently originated in the 1900s and subsequently expanded globally. Bioinformatic analyses indicate that several genes involved in metabolism (e.g., maintenance of the methylcitrate cycle), ESX-I secretion, metal ion homeostasis and cell surface remodelling may have contributed to M. kansasii ’s success and its ongoing adaptation to the human host.