Evolutionary origins of the emergent ST796 clone of vancomycin resistant Enterococcus faecium

AH Buultjens; MMC Lam; S Ballard; IR Monk; AA Mahony; EA Grabsch; ML Grayson; S Pang; GW Coombs; JO Robinson; T Seemann; PDR Johnson; BP Howden; TP Stinear

Journal article

Evolutionary origins of the emergent ST796 clone of vancomycin resistant Enterococcus faecium

AH Buultjens, MMC Lam, S Ballard, IR Monk, AA Mahony, EA Grabsch, ML Grayson, S Pang, GW Coombs, JO Robinson, T Seemann, PDR Johnson, BP Howden, TP Stinear

Peerj | PEERJ INC | Published : 2017

DOI: 10.7717/peerj.2916

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Abstract

From early 2012, a novel clone of vancomycin resistant Enterococcus faecium (assigned the multi locus sequence type ST796) was simultaneously isolated from geographically separate hospitals in south eastern Australia and New Zealand. Here we describe the complete genome sequence of Ef_aus0233, a representative ST796 E. faecium isolate. We used PacBio single molecule real-time sequencing to establish a high quality, fully assembled genome comprising a circular chromosome of 2,888,087 bp and five plasmids. Comparison of Ef_aus0233 to other E. faecium genomes shows Ef_aus0233 is a member of the epidemic hospital-adapted lineage and has evolved from an ST555- like ancestral progenitor by the acc..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Ian Monk Author

Torsten Seemann Author

Paul Johnson Author

Ben Howden Author

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Funding Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) of Australia (1027874, 1084015). BPH and TPS are recipients of NHMRC fellowships (1023526 and 1008549, respectively). SG and TS was supported in part by the VLSCI Life Sciences Computation Centre, a collaboration between Melbourne, Monash and La Trobe Universities, and an initiative of the Victorian Government, Australia. AAM is a recipient of an Australian Postgraduate Award, University of Melbourne. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.