Unravelling the Transcriptome Profile of the Swine Respiratory Tract Mycoplasmas

The swine respiratory ciliary epithelium is mainly colonized by Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae, Mycoplasma flocculare and Mycoplasma hyorhinis. While colonization by M. flocculare is virtually asymptomatic, M. hyopneumoniae and M. hyorhinis infections may cause respiratory disease. Information regarding transcript structure and gene abundance provides valuable insight into gene function and regulation, which has not yet been analyzed on a genome-wide scale in these Mycoplasma species. In this study, we report the construction of transcriptome maps for M. hyopneumoniae, M. flocculare and M. hyorhinis, which represent data for conducting comparative studies on the transcriptional repertory. For each species, three cDNA libraries were generated, yielding averages of 415,265, 695,313 and 93,578 reads for M. hyopneumoniae, M. flocculare and M. hyorhinis, respectively, with an average read length of 274 bp. The reads mapping showed that 92%, 98% and 96% of the predicted genes were transcribed in the M. hyopneumoniae, M. flocculare and M. hyorhinis genomes, respectively. Moreover, we showed that the majority of the genes are co-expressed, confirming the previously predicted transcription units. Finally, our data defined the RNA populations in detail, with the map transcript boundaries and transcription unit structures on a genome-wide scale.