Population structure of Neisseria gonorrhoeae based on whole genome data and its relationship with antibiotic resistance
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Bioinformatics, Evolutionary Studies, Genomics, Microbiology, Infectious Diseases
- Keywords
- Antimicrobial resistance, Population structure, Recombination, Whole genome sequence analysis, Genetic admixture
- Copyright
- © 2014 Ezewudo et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2014. Population structure of Neisseria gonorrhoeae based on whole genome data and its relationship with antibiotic resistance. PeerJ PrePrints 2:e636v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.636v1
Abstract
Neisseria gonorrhoeae is the causative agent of gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted infection (STI) of major importance. As a result of antibiotic resistance, there are now limited options for treating patients. We collected whole genome sequences and associated metadata data on 76 N. gonorrhoeae strains from around the globe and searched for known determinants of antibiotics resistance within the strains. The population structure and evolutionary forces within the pathogen population were analyzed. Our results indicated a cosmopolitan gonoccocal population mainly made up of five subgroups. The estimated ratio of recombination to mutation (r/m=2.2) from our data set indicates an appreciable level of recombination occurring in the population. Strains with resistance phenotypes to more recent antibiotics (azithromycin and cefixime) were mostly found in two of the five population subgroups.
Author Comment
This is a submisison to PeerJ for review.