Table_1_Genomic Insights Into the Interspecific Diversity and Evolution of Mobiluncus, a Pathogen Associated With Bacterial Vaginosis.XLSX

Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is a common vaginal infection and has been associated with increased risk for a wide array of health issues. BV is linked with a variety of heterogeneous pathogenic anaerobic bacteria, among which Mobiluncus is strongly associated with BV diagnosis. However, their genetic features, pathogenicity, interspecific diversity, and evolutionary characters have not been illustrated at genomic level. The current study performed phylogenomic and comparative genomic analyses of Mobiluncus. Phylogenomic analyses revealed remarkable phylogenetic distinctions among different species. Compared with M. curtisii, M. mulieris had a larger genome and pangenome size with more insertion sequences but less CRISPR-Cas systems. In addition, these two species were diverse in profile of virulence factors, but harbored similar antibiotic resistance genes. Statistically different functional genome profiles between strains from the two species were determined, as well as correlations of some functional genes/pathways with putative pathogenicity. We also showed that high levels of horizontal gene transfer might be an important strategy for species diversification and pathogenicity. Collectively, this study provides the first genome sequence level description of Mobiluncus, and may shed light on its virulence/pathogenicity, functional diversification, and evolutionary dynamics. Our study could facilitate the further investigations of this important pathogen, and might improve the future treatment of BV.

细菌性阴道炎（BV）是一种常见的阴道感染，其与多种健康问题的风险增加有关。细菌性阴道炎与多种异质性的厌氧致病菌相关联，其中摩勒菌与BV的诊断密切相关。然而，这些致病菌的遗传特性、致病性、种间多样性和进化特征在基因组水平上尚未得到充分阐述。本研究对摩勒菌进行了系统发生基因组学和比较基因组学分析。系统发生基因组学分析揭示了不同物种之间显著的系统发生学差异。与M. curtisii相比，M. mulieris具有更大的基因组规模和泛基因组大小，拥有更多的插入序列但CRISPR-Cas系统较少。此外，这两种物种在致病因子谱方面存在差异，但携带相似的抗生素耐药基因。研究还确定了两种物种菌株之间统计学上显著不同的功能基因组特征，以及一些功能基因/通路与潜在致病性的相关性。我们还表明，高水平的外源基因转移可能是物种多样化和致病性重要策略。总体而言，本研究首次对摩勒菌的基因组序列进行了描述，并可能阐明其致病性/致病性、功能多样化和进化动态。本研究可能促进对该重要病原体的进一步研究，并可能改善BV的未来治疗方法。