Journal article

Marine sponge microbe provides insights into evolution and virulence of the tubercle bacillus

SJ Pidot, S Klatt, LS Ates, W Frigui, F Sayes, L Majlessi, H Izumi, IR Monk, JL Porter, V Bennett-Wood, T Seemann, A Otter, G Taiaroa, GM Cook, N West, NJ Tobias, JA Fuerst, MD Stutz, M Pellegrini, M McConville Show all

Plos Pathogens | PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE | Published : 2024

Abstract

Reconstructing the evolutionary origins of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of human tuberculosis, has helped identify bacterial factors that have led to the tubercle bacillus becoming such a formidable human pathogen. Here we report the discovery and detailed characterization of an exceedingly slow growing mycobacterium that is closely related to M. tuberculosis for which we have proposed the species name Mycobacterium spongiae sp. nov., (strain ID: FSD4b-SM). The bacterium was isolated from a marine sponge, taken from the waters of the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia. Comparative genomics revealed that, after the opportunistic human pathogen Mycobacterium decipie..

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Grants

Awarded by University of Melbourne


Funding Acknowledgements

This project was supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Ideas grant (GNT2021638) to S.J.P, a NHMRC L2 Fellowship to T.P.S., and NHMRC Project Grant (GNT1105522) to T.P.S. and S.J.P., an Agence Nationale pour la Recherche grant (ANR-10-LABX-62-IBEID) to RB and an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage project (LP0882233) to J.A.F. H.I. was supported by a University of Queensland Research Scholarship (UQRS) and University of Queensland International Research Tuition Award (UQIRTA). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.