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Genomic fluidity and pathogenic bacteria: applications in diagnostics, epidemiology and intervention

Nature Reviews Microbiology volume 6, pages 387–394 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

The increasing availability of DNA-sequence information for multiple pathogenic and non-pathogenic variants of individual bacterial species has indicated that both DNA acquisition and genome reduction have important roles in genome evolution. Such genomic fluidity, which is found in human pathogens such as Escherichia coli, Helicobacter pylori and Mycobacterium tuberculosis, has important consequences for the clinical management of the diseases that are caused by these pathogens and for the development of diagnostics and new molecular epidemiological methods.

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Figure 1: Mechanisms that contribute to bacterial genome evolution.
Figure 2: Current evolutionary scenario for pathogenic mycobacteria.
Figure 3: Contribution of horizontal acquisition of mobile genetic elements to the evolution of Escherichia coli pathotypes.

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Acknowledgements

Research in the laboratories of N.A. and S.E.H. was supported by several grants from the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India. Research in the laboratories of U.D. and J.H. was supported by grants from the German Research Foundation (SFB479, TP A1), the European Community (European virtual institute for functional genomics of bacterial pathogens; CEE LSHB-CT-2005-512,061) and the Bavarian Research Foundation.

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  1. Niyaz Ahmed and Ulrich Dobrindt: N.A. and U.D. contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Niyaz Ahmed is at the Pathogen Evolution Laboratory, Center for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Nacharam, Hyderabad 500076, India,

    Niyaz Ahmed

  2. Ulrich Dobrindt and Jörg Hacker are at the University of Würzburg, Institute for Molecular Biology of Infectious Diseases, Röntgenring 11, 97070 Würzburg, Germany.,

    Ulrich Dobrindt & Jörg Hacker

  3. Jörg Hacker is also at the Robert-Koch Institut, Nordufer 20, 13353 Berlin, Germany.,

    Jörg Hacker

  4. Seyed E. Hasnain is at the University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, 500 046, India, The Institute of Life Sciences, HCU Campus, Hyderabad, 500046, India and the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Jakkur, Bangalore 560064, India.,

    Seyed E. Hasnain

Authors
  1. Niyaz Ahmed
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  2. Ulrich Dobrindt
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  3. Jörg Hacker
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  4. Seyed E. Hasnain
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Jörg Hacker or Seyed E. Hasnain.

Related links

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DATABASES

Entrez Genome Project

Escherichia coli

Helicobacter pylori

Mycobacterium avium

Mycobacterium bovis

Mycobacterium leprae

Mycobacterium marinum

Mycobacterium smegmatis

Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Mycobacterium ulcerans

Yersinia pestis

Yersinia pseudotuberculosis

FURTHER INFORMATION

Jörg Hacker and Ulrich Dobrindt's homepage

Niyaz Ahmed's homepage

Seyed E. Hasnain's homepage

Institute Pasteur (Colibri database)

Institute Pasteur (PyloriGene database)

J. Craig Venter Institute (comprehensive microbial resource)

MIRU–VNTRplus

Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (pathogen sequencing unit)

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Ahmed, N., Dobrindt, U., Hacker, J. et al. Genomic fluidity and pathogenic bacteria: applications in diagnostics, epidemiology and intervention. Nat Rev Microbiol 6, 387–394 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro1889

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