Transcontinental adaptation of the bovine pathogen Campylobacter fetus
Abstract I1
Presenter: Daniela Costa (Institut Pasteur Montevideo)
Campylobacter fetus is a host-associated species with major evolutionary lineages that have adapted as genital pathogens of cattle and opportunistic pathogens of humans. It is assumed that cattle infections associated with reproductive failure due to Bovine Genital Campylobacteriosis (BCG) are mainly caused by the bovine-adapted clone ST-4. Here we show that this clone actually consists of distinct evolutionary lineages, primarily associated with the European or Latin American continent. We use a phylogenomic approach on a global collection of >200 strains to provide evidence that bovine-adapted C. fetus may have originated around 500 years ago, and may have arrived from Europe during the colonization period of Latin America. We detect specific recombination events on genes involved in the evasion of hosts immune response and expansion of mobile genetic elements as genomic adaptations that resulted from the allopatric evolution of transcontinental C. fetus populations. Our genomic evolutionary framework revealed a previously unappreciated population structure of the bovine-adapted C. fetus ST-4, which will facilitate epidemiology research and the development of improved molecular diagnostic tools to combat genital infections of cattle caused by this pathogen.
About the presenter
I graduated from the Bachelor’s Degree in Biochemistry at the Faculty of Sciences, University of the Republic, in Uruguay in 2011. In 2016 I obtained my Master’s degree in Microbiology at the same Institution, after working on the elucidation of the mechanisms that regulate the storage of iron in the bacterium Sinorhizobium meliloti. The beginning of my studies to obtain the doctorate degree in biological sciences marked a break in my training, when I began to immerse myself in the world of computational genomics, momentarily neglecting the bacteriological and molecular approach used until then. I am currently continuing my PhD studies in the Evolutionary Genetics Section of the Faculty of Sciences, and in the Microbial Genomics Laboratory of the Pasteur Institute in Montevideo
Presenting in Speaking session 1 - Host adaptation