Predicting Phenotype and Emerging Strains among Chlamydia trachomatis Infections

摘要

Chlamydia trachomatisis a global cause of blinding trachoma and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). We used comparative genomics of the family Chlamydiaceaeto select conserved housekeeping genes for C. tracho-matismultilocus sequencing, characterizing 19 reference and 68 clinical isolates from 6 continental/subcontinental regions. There were 44 sequence types (ST). Identical STs for STI isolates were recovered from different regions, whereas STs for trachoma isolates were restricted by con-tinent. Twenty-nine of 52 alleles had nonuniform distribu-tions of frequencies across regions (p<0.001). Phylogenetic analysis showed 3 disease clusters: invasive lymphogranu-loma venereum strains, globally prevalent noninvasive STI strains (ompAgenotypes D/Da, E, and F), and nonpreva-lent STI strains with a trachoma subcluster. Recombinant strains were observed among STI clusters. Single nucle-otide polymorphisms (SNPs) were predictive of disease specificity. Multilocus and SNP typing can now be used to detect diverse and emerging C. trachomatisstrains for epi-demiologic and evolutionary studies of trachoma and STI populations worldwide