Vibrio vulnificus pathogenesis identified by phenogenomic analyses

Vibrio vulnificus is the pathogen of foodborne disease with the highest mortality rate, despite its relevance to public health, it is not yet clear what the ecological drivers enable clinical strains to emerge and what the particular genetic characteristics allow these clones to colonize the human host. Here, we used a robust mix of genome-wide association studies, genome-wide epistasis and co-selection studies, gene knockout assays along with phenotype determination to identify signals of co-selection which was a combination of genetic markers that had undergone repeated selection together during the evolution of V. vulnificus.