Rhodococcus equi is a soil-dwelling facultative intracellular pathogen that can infect many mammals, including humans. R. equi is most well known for its ability to cause severe pyogranulomatous disease in foals, primarily involving the lungs although other body systems may also be affected. The disease is endemic on many horse-breeding farms worldwide and poses a severe threat to the horse breeding industry because there is no vaccine available. Current prophylaxis is based on systematic preventative treatments with macrolides combined with rifampicin, which are also used to treat clinical cases of the disease in foals. In this thesis I have used a combination of wet laboratory and bioinformatic approaches to identify the molecular basis of emerging combined resistance to macrolides and rifampicin in R. equi foal isolates from the USA. The genomes of a selection of resistant and susceptible strains from across the USA were sequenced and assembled. Resistance genes were systematically searched by reciprocal best-match BLASTP comparisons to known antibiotic resistance determinants. This led to the discovery of a novel erythromycin ribosomal methylase (erm) gene, erm(46), in all resistant strains. Complementation analysis in a susceptible R. equi strain showed that erm(46) was sufficient to confer resistance to all macrolides, lincosamides, and streptogramin B. The erm(46) gene is carried by an integrative conjugative element (ICE) which is transferable between R. equi strains. The ICE is formed by two distinct parts, a class I integron associated with an IS6100 sequence and the erm(46) determinant carried by a sub-element which contains putative actinobacterial conjugative translocase apparatus and a transposase/integrase. All resistant strains also carry the same non synonymous point mutation in rpoB conferring rifampicin resistance. Thus, these strains are carrying double resistance to the most commonly used antibiotics to treat R. equi worldwide. Phylogenetic analysis based on the core genome demonstrated that all resistant strains are clonal. This indicates that although conjugal acquisition of the erm(46) conjugative element may occur at a high frequency, the need for the concurrent presence of a second rpoB mutation for survival in the macrolide and rifampicin dominated farm environment has effectively selected for the spread of a single clone. In the second section of this work, we sequenced a further 20 R. equi genomes from difference sources (equine, porcine, bovine, human), including representatives of each of the seven major genogroups previously defined in our laboratory based on pulsed field gel electrophoresis. I have used the newly acquired genetic information to study the genome of R. equi and analyse its diversity within and outwith its species group. This enabled us to explore the pan genome and define that R. equi is a genetically well-defined bacterial species. Our results provide definitive evidence that resolves the current dispute over R. equi classification, specifically they do not support the recent proposal (based on classical polyphasic bacterial taxonomical methods) that R. equi should be transferred to a new genus. Our core-genome phylogenomic analyses unambiguously show that the genus Rhodocococcus is monophyletic and that R. equi forms a clade together with the most recently described related environmental species R. defluvii that radiates from within the genus. Together with other shared biological and genetic characteristics, namely the unique niche-adaptive mechanism based on evolutionarily related extrachromosomal replicons, R. equi should be conseidered a bona fide member of the genus Rhodococcus. We also confirm that Rhodococcus spp. and Nocardia spp. are sufficiently distinct to warrant them belonging to different genera. In conclusion, this work used whole genome sequencing to characterize the molecular basis underlying the emergence and clonal spread of multi-resistant R. equi in horse breeding farms in the USA. This work also highlights the limitations of classical taxonomical approaches in bacterial systematics, and illustrates the importance of incorporating modern phylogenomic approaches to understand the evolutionary relationships between bacterial strains and their accurate taxonomic position.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:735599 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Anastasi, Elisa |
| Contributors | Vazquez-Boland, Jose ; Freeman, Thomas |
| Publisher | University of Edinburgh |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/1842/25887 |
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