Abstract
Between November 2010 and April 2011, 11 cases of cholera were identified and associated with the consumption of raw oysters harvested from Apalachicola Bay, Florida. The etiological agent was the ctxAB-positive Vibrio cholerae serogroup O75. The genome sequences of the isolates provide useful information and are deposited in the public genome databases.
GENOME ANNOUNCEMENT
Vibrio cholerae, the causative agent of cholera, a gastrointestinal infection causing profuse rice water diarrhea, is known to be autochthonous to aquatic environments worldwide. Currently, >200 V. cholerae serogroups have been identified, with the majority of cholera cases being ascribed to V. cholerae serogroups O1 and O139. However, it is now known that mobile and genome-anchored virulence factors are responsible for the characteristic symptoms of cholera, regardless of serogroup. Further, recent large-scale molecular analyses of V. cholerae isolates recovered from cholera outbreaks demonstrated that a significant number of cases of cholera are caused by infection with V. cholerae non-O1 or non-O139 serogroups (1–3). Thus, it is imperative to focus attention on strains other than those of the O1 and O139 serogroups to describe more completely the public health burden of V. cholerae on a global scale. In an effort to accomplish this, the genomes of eight V. cholerae serogroup O75 isolates from a single cholera outbreak were sequenced.
Between November 2010 and April 2011, 11 cases of cholera were reported in four states (Florida [8 cases], Georgia, Louisiana, and Indiana [1 case each]) that were concurrent with, but genetically unrelated to, the cholera epidemic that started in Haiti in November 2010 (4). The majority of patients reported having eaten raw oysters harvested from the Apalachicola Bay, Florida, prior to the onset of symptoms. The clinical isolates were identified as V. cholerae serogroup O75 and found to contain the cholera toxin genes (ctxAB), but no further molecular analyses were conducted. Interestingly, V. cholerae O75 has been isolated repeatedly, albeit sporadically, from both clinical cholera cases and the environment in the southeastern United States (5).
Using the Illumina genome analyzer IIx system (Illumina, Inc., San Diego, CA) according to the manufacturer’s methods, the genomes of V. cholerae O75 strains CP1110, CP1111, CP1112, CP1113, CP1114, CP1115, CP1116, and CP1117 were sequenced. Genomic DNA was extracted using the Qiagen DNeasy blood and tissue kit (Qiagen, Valencia, CA). Coverage was between 196× and 348×, and raw reads were assembled using the CLC Genomics Workbench, generating between 183 and 207 contigs. The genomes were annotated using the RAST server (6). The estimated sizes of the V. cholerae O75 genomes ranged between 3,925,419 and 3,932,707 bp (3,479 and 3,489 protein coding sequences). A detailed report of the results of comparative analyses of these genomes and other available V. cholerae genomes will be published elsewhere.
Nucleotide sequence accession numbers.
The sequences for the V. cholerae O75 strains were deposited at NCBI under accession no. AMWF00000000 (CP1110), AMWS00000000 (CP1111), AMWT00000000 (CP1112), AMWU00000000 (CP1113), AMWV00000000 (CP1114), AMWR00000000 (CP1115), ANNM00000000 (CP1116), and AMWW00000000 (CP1117).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, no. 0813066, NIH grants no. 1RO1A139129-01 and 2RO1A1039129-11A2, the National Institutes of Health-Fogarty International Center Challenge grant no. 1RC1TW008587-01, and NOAA grant no. SO660009.
Footnotes
Citation Haley BJ, Choi SY, Hasan NA, Abdullah ASH, Cebula TA, Huq A, Colwell RR. 2013. Genome sequences of clinical Vibrio cholerae isolates from an oyster-borne cholera outbreak in Florida. Genome Announc. 1(6):e00966-13. doi:10.1128/genomeA.00966-13.
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